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Terminus's FAQ   [  Topics  | Groups  | Last  | Expand  | Search  | Print  | Documentation ]
Folder open  Authentication problems [ Expand ]
  Question ?  Are there any general infos about the Mac mini available ?   
  Question ?  I can't hear any sound through my microphone connected to line in   
  Question ?  Mac Mini 4,1 builtin bluetooth receiver and Logitech MX5500 MX Revolution   

Folder closed  Configuration [ Expand ]
  Question ?  What is the maximum transfer speed on an RB153 Board ?   
  Question ?  What does a RB153 look like ?   
  Question ?  How can I identify UUID on harddisk partitions ?   
  Question ?  Can I resize (grow) a NTFS Partition under Linux ?   
  Question ?  How can I Identify a System using DMI data ?   
  Question ?  How to Disable/Enable Spotlight under Mac OS-X ?   
  Question ?  How to get KUbuntu onto a macmin 2,1   

Folder closed  Cryptography stuff [ Expand ]
  Question ?  How can In use a crypted Filesystem ?   
  Question ?  How can I manipulate X509 certificates ?   
  Question ?  How can I generate self signed certificates for various services ?   
  Question ?  Is there a way to easily check a valid ssl connection ?   
  Question ?  Are there ways to check certificate purposes ?   
  Question ?  For a website that talks about security you have an invalid security certificate !   

Folder closed  eBooks [ Expand ]
  Question ?  What eBooks can I read with the Sony eBook reader PRS-505 ?   
  Question ?  Can I manage my eBook Lbrary under another OS than windows ?   
  Question ?  Can I personalize my PRS-505 eBook ?   
  Question ?  Where can I buy/find some eBooks ?   

Folder closed  Electronics [ Expand ]
  Question ?  Common connectors for LiPo batteries   
  Question ?  RC Batteries: Status   
  Question ?  RC Batteries: Battery life cycle listing   
  Question ?  FOM: Figure of Merit   
  Question ?  LiPo Battery internal resistance measurement   
  Question ?  MP: Manufacturers Promise   
  Question ?  Max I: Maximum recommended average current draw   

Folder closed  Internal private group [ Expand ]
  Question ?  Borgbackup upgrade   

Folder closed  Linux General [ Expand ]
  Question ?  LILO won't boot. I get LI   
  Question ?  How can I boot from the SATA drive 2 of a Software Raid-1 System ?   
  Question ?  How does SATA Raid work ? Fake or real raid ...   
  Question ?  Logitech MX700 mouse configuration with XOrg   
  Question ?  How can I reboot the Linux system without access to the disks ?   
  Question ?  How do I prepare the SUSE 10.0 source for compiling an external module ?   
  Question ?  Logitech MX700 Keyboard configuration for XOrg   
  Question ?  Thunderbird E-Mail Header extension   
  Question ?  How can I do some network troubleshooting ?   
  Question ?  How to reinstall grub from a rescue mode ?   
  Question ?  How can I mount a SMB share under linux ?   

Folder closed  Linux on Apple Hardware [ Expand ]
  Question ?  How can I control the FAN on my mac mini ?   
  Question ?  How can I get rid of the GPT signature on a harddrive of the mac-mini ?   
  Question ?  Is it possible to run linux without mac-os X on a mac-mini ?   
  Question ?  How can I tell the kernel which sound board to load ?   
  Question ?  Are there benchmarks on the mac-mini regarding different specs ?   
  Question ?  What startup keys / Boot options to exist on the mac mini ?   
  Question ?  Is there a listing of the beep codes for the mini ?   
  Question ?  Dual Pairing bluetooth keyboard under Linux and OS-X ?   
  Question ?  How can I migrate my iTunes playlists to Amarok ?   

Folder closed  Linux on QNAP Hardware [ Expand ]
  Question ?  I seem to have the wrong disk size using MRTG to poll the QNap Device ?   
  Question ?  Raid 5 Array won't show up after a cold-boot ?   

Folder closed  Linux on Routerboards [ Expand ]
  Question ?  How can I archive Backups automatically on RouterOS ?   
  Question ?  Blacklist IP through phpAPI and terminate active connections   

Folder closed  Linux on VIA Epia Hardware [ Expand ]
  Question ?  BIOS Updates for Epia-Boards fix DMA-Issues   
  Question ?  The Vt1211 sensors-module driver does not work under kernel 2.6.13 ?   
  Question ?  How can I flash the BIOS on the Epia 10000M mini-ITX system under Linux ?   
  Question ?  How do I configure the Conexant Accessrunner ADSL-Module for the CV860A Board ?   
  Question ?  How can I flash the BIOS on the Epia 10000M mini-ITX system under DOS ?   
  Question ?  Adding USB Wireless Lan for Lex CV860A System   
  Question ?  How do I need to configure the sensors stuff on the Lex CV860A ?   
  Question ?  I can't get a Screen-Resolution higher than 1024x768 using the X - FBDev ?   
  Question ?  Powersaving features on the Lex 860A with kernel 2.6.x ?   
  Question ?  Why is the Display quality so bad ?   
  Question ?  Crackling sound using the M10000 Nemiah under Mandrake 9.x/10.x ?   
  Question ?  Installing mandrake 9.1 on the Lex CV860A System ?   
  Question ?  What does the Lex Light CV860A look like ?   
  Question ?  lm_sensors doesn't find the correct sensor chip under under Mandrake 9.1 ?   
  Question ?  Building the 2.6 kernel for the Epia M10000 Board with Nemiah CPU   
  Question ?  Lex CV860A / Epia 5000 system instability   
  Question ?  Kernel configuration - Lex CV860A 533MHz Epia V CPU   
  Question ?  Any more informations on the CV860A Board ?   
  Question ?  Any more informations on the Epia M10000 board ?   
  Question ?  Specific xorg.conf files for CLE266 Chip ?   
  Question ?  My Nemiah M10000 always crashes when rebooting SUSE 9.3 after installation ?   
  Question ?  What does the Hush mini-ITX PC look like ?   
  Question ?  Why use via_agp.o ? via.o ?   
  Question ?  How do I update the Bios on the Epia SP8000E Board ?   
  Question ?  How do I configure the sensors stuff ?   
  Question ?  Any more informations about the Epia SP8000E Board ?   
  Question ?  How does CPU Frequency scaling, e.g. powersaving work ?   
  Question ?  Xorg configuration files for Epia SP8000E Board CN400 Chipset ?   
  Question ?  Epia SP8000E Board Layout   
  Question ?  Why an Epia SP8000E Board ?   
  Question ?  VIA CN400 Chipset Overview   
  Question ?  Building the 2.6 kernel for the Epia SP8000E Board with Nemiah CPU   
  Question ?  Does the SP8000E run fanless in the Travla Case C138?   
  Question ?  Does the Epia SP8000E run fanless ?   

Folder closed  META FAQ [ Expand ]
  Question ?  Why do I not see the full 4GB Ram on my system ?   
  Question ?  mp3 streamer - Discontinued   
  Question ?  3dpixmaps - discontinued   

Folder closed  Nothing Specific [ Expand ]
  Question ?  Is there a way to migrate playcount data from amarok to xbmc ?   
  Question ?  What is the Gnu Public Licence   
  Question ?  What does the name SOLSYS stand for ?   
  Question ?  What is a Kibit ? Or why does my OS show me less space than the manufacturer of the Disk ?   

Folder closed  Questions on specific software [ Expand ]
  Question ?  Backup script usage - Full backup first, then incremental !   
  Question ?  Where can I download the stargate-backup script ?   
  Question ?  Known problems on the Backup-script ?   
  Question ?  What is the mirror mode ?   
  Question ?  How do I install the backup scripts ?   
  Question ?  How do I recover data from the backup archive ?   
  Question ?  What's the stargate Backup script ?   
  Question ?  Why has tar archiver been removed from the backup-script feature ?   
  Question ?  How do I configure the backup-script ?   

Folder closed  Ubuntu (Kubuntu,Ubuntu,Xubuntu) [ Expand ]
  Question ?  Firefox 3 beta and prefetch-next ?   
  Question ?  Adding some apps to Kubuntu   
  Question ?  How can I add Microsoft Fonts to my Ubuntu System ?   
  Question ?  Can I move the boot partition of my xUbuntu System to another partition ?   
  Question ?  Some apt tricks for debian based systems   
  Question ?  Can I move my OS from one Harddisk to another one ?   

Folder closed  Website [ Expand ]
  Question ?  Why does phpPhobos look so weird in IE ?   
  Question ?  What formatting capabilities does the local submit interface provide ?   
  Question ?  Can we download a copy of phpPhobos ?   
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Folder open  Answers
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Question ? Are there any general infos about the Mac mini available ?   [
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 Why write my own if an excelent reference exists in the Mac Mini Wiki.

Some other sites are listed here:

 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 29 August 2007 @ 22:43:37  
Authentication problems - Apple Mac-mini, # Hits: 92074
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Question ? I can't hear any sound through my microphone connected to line in   [
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 It's because it really is an AUDIO IN PORT, not a low voltage MICROPHONE PORT!

It requires 1 V pp line level voltages, and you bought an off the shelf dynamic microphone that only puts out a few millivolts.

You'll need something that brings the microphone levels up to line level. You could use an old cassette deck with MIC IN and HEADPHONE OUT in a pinch, or use a dedicated MIC amp that bumps up the signal level.

Old Macs like the LC III and such did use a basic MIC INPUT port, but later Macs switched to LINE INPUT so they'd work with signals coming from stereo systems, etc. Apple made a LINE LEVEL MIC with an extra long tip that gets power off an extra contact point in Mac models even as recent as a G4 tower .

The real question is, did Apple keep backward support for this microphone? If so, is it possible to find one? However, you'd lose your advantages of a headset microphone...

The best solution so far is the iMic which provides all required interfaces to plug in a standard headset. Details about the Linux support can be found here

Remember, the port is actually a STEREO INPUT port, so this may also mean you would need to use some STEREO to MONO adapters or find a software setting that will put one channel across both left and right as a MONO signal.  

Entered by smurphy on Thursday, 13 September 2007 @ 22:55:29  
Authentication problems - Apple Mac-mini, # Hits: 91925
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Question ? Mac Mini 4,1 builtin bluetooth receiver and Logitech MX5500 MX Revolution   [
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 Note - in case you use Ubuntu 11.04 - you don't need to do this - it works out of the box already.

If a btusb module is loaded - unload it first with

sudo rmmod btusb

Download and install this debian package: btusb-dkms_0.0.1_all.deb

Install the extracted deb file. Problem is that this file is made for older kernels. So - all we do - is install it, and replace the btusb.c file later to avoid the error.
Install with

sudo dpkg -i btusb-dkms_0.0.1_all.deb 

Download the replacement btusb.c and replace /usr/src/btusb-0.0.1/btusb.c with it.

After that, run compile and install the new module in the terminal, using this as a guideline:

sudo dkms remove -m btusb -v 0.0.1 --all
sudo dkms add -m btusb -v 0.0.1
sudo dkms build -m btusb -v 0.0.1
sudo dkms install -m btusb -v 0.0.1
sudo modprobe btusb

Finally, restart the bluetooth service with:

sudo service bluetooth start

You can get rid of the dpkg error message by downloading the following file and copying it to /usr/src. Run sudo apt-get install -f to remove installer error message.

Note - the data and the code on this page has been copied from Mac Book Pro/Ubuntu Maverick thread, as I'm too lazy to remember the Link every time I have to fix it on my mac mini. So - Thx to the community for the info. 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 20 October 2010 @ 17:15:08  
Authentication problems - Apple Mac-mini, # Hits: 80184

Attach   btusb-dkms_0.0.1_all.deb  [ 8,570 bytes - application/x-deb ]
Attach   btusb.c  [ 28,166 bytes - text/x-csrc ]
Attach   btusb-0.0.1.dkms.tar.gz  [ 6,813 bytes - application/x-gzip ]
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Question ? What is the maximum transfer speed on an RB153 Board ?   [
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It showed after some testing, that the maximum Interface speed, by not using the builtin Bridge Chip - is around 10.4Mbps (Mega Bits per second), This makes roughly 1.3MiBytes/s. The limitation is due to the CPU Speed which is running at 175MHz. At that speed though CPU utilization hits 100% - while the CPU is at this level - not many manipulations are possible fluently.
The Graphs on the right show this very nicely. On top - WLan, after that the Ether3 interface - server the 4GB Download was done from, and on the bottom the CPU Load in % during the file transfer. You can see very nicely that the CPU barely leaves the 100% mark..

I have noticed that through PPPoE (Bridge to the ether1 Device) 13.4MBits/s have been transferred. So - it seems the PCI-Bus is costing also some resources to the RB153 Board. 

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 14 March 2008 @ 17:17:53  
Configuration - Routerboard RBxxxAH, # Hits: 96547

Attach   WLan small  [ 11,487 bytes - image/png ]
Attach   Load small  [ 11,208 bytes - image/png ]
Attach   Ether3 small  [ 10,803 bytes - image/png ]
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Question ? What does a RB153 look like ?   [
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 Check out the specs of the RouterBoard RB153.

It's actually a very neat little piece of hardware. Small, efficient, low-power. Only drawback is that the CPU is not able to power the full bandwidth the interfaces provide - thus if you really need 54MBit bandwidth - you should go over to the RB53x Series - which have the same CPU at 400MHz, able to handle the bandwidth.

  • CPU: MIPS32 4Kc, 175MHz embedded
  • Memory: 32MB SDRAM
  • Storage: 64MB onboard NAND memory chip
  • 5 x 10/100 Mbit/s fast ethernet ports with auto MDI/X
  • 3 x MiniPCI Type IIIA/IIIB slots
  • 1x 2.4/5GHz 802.11a+b+g High Power Wireless Mini-PCI Card (R52H)
  • Onboard speaker
  • Serial: One DB9 RS232C asynchronous serial port
  • LEDs: Power, 3 LED pairs for MiniPCI slots, 1 user LED
  • Power options: 11..60V power jack or IEEE802.3af power over ethernet (12V / 48V DC not for use with power over datalines)
  • Power out: One 3V DC power output header, max. power output 500mA
  • Power consumption: 3-4W without any addon cards. Max. 13W
  • Dimensions: 160mm x 160mm (6.3in x 6.3in)
  • Weight: 183g (6.5oz)
  • Operating temperature: -20°C to +70°C (-4°F to 158°F)
  • Humidity: 70% relative humidity (non-condensing)
  • OS Support: RouterOS, GNU/Linux

You can have a view on the internals of mine

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 14 March 2008 @ 17:23:47  
Configuration - Routerboard RBxxxAH, # Hits: 96402

Attach   RB153 board  [ 23,906 bytes - image/jpeg ]
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Question ? How can I identify UUID on harddisk partitions ?   [
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 In case you are repartitioning a drive - the UUID's (Universally Unique Identifier) get changed. This is more and more important as many devices today support hot-plugging or are external. You have several ways to identify the partitions. 2 of these are here. A simple way is the following:

$  ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/
 458b1af6-46e4-4980-8dab-ceaa2083459a -> ../../sda3
 6c80c066-08ad-4c22-9366-fe10ff8350e2 -> ../../sda2
 d18ad271-6831-4b83-980f-fe919ff65fd1 -> ../../sda1

will list you all UUID linked to the proper old known devices.
A call as Root of blkid will provide you the UUID of your harddisk.

$ sudo blkid
[sudo] password for jmertin:
/dev/sda1: LABEL="ROOT" UUID="d18ad271-6831-4b83-980f-fe919ff65fd1" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda2: TYPE="swap" UUID="6c80c066-08ad-4c22-9366-fe10ff8350e2"
/dev/sda3: UUID="458b1af6-46e4-4980-8dab-ceaa2083459a" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

 

Entered by smurphy on Monday, 19 May 2008 @ 22:53:47  
Configuration - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 96109
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Question ? Can I resize (grow) a NTFS Partition under Linux ?   [
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 It's quite easy to do so. You just require fdisk and ntfsresize (Check your software repositories to have both installed. fdisk usually is).

With fdisk -l /dev/sda you can make a backup of start/end points of your actual setup. As long as you don't format the partitions - all is safe. Example output would be

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        2550    20482843+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            2551        7415    39078112+  af  Unknown
/dev/sda3            7416       10000    20764012+  83  Linux
/dev/sda4           10001       24321   115033432+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5           10001       10262     2104452   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6           10263       13041    22322286   83  Linux
/dev/sda7           13042       19121    48837568+  83  Linux
/dev/sda8           19122       24321    41768968+  83  Linux

In this case - delete partition 2 - and replace the end boundary of partition 1:

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        2550      39078112+ 7  HPFS/NTFS

After that - just run ntfsresize with:

ntfsresize /dev/sda1

It will automatically adapt the ntfs journal and size informations to the new size and schedule a filesystem check for the next Windows XP Start.
Windows - after starting up - will want to restart as it has discovered new hardware (the bigger disk). After that restart - you're done.  

Entered by smurphy on Thursday, 19 March 2009 @ 10:23:06  
Configuration - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 93668
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Question ? How can I Identify a System using DMI data ?   [
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 Use the dmidecode programm. Without arguments, it will dump loads of data. To limit it - try this:

~$ sudo dmidecode -s system-manufacturer
LENOVO
~$ sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name
64585KG
~$ sudo dmidecode -s system-version
ThinkPad T61p

 

Entered by smurphy on Monday, 19 January 2009 @ 20:48:46  
Configuration - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 93646
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Question ? How to Disable/Enable Spotlight under Mac OS-X ?   [
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 Disabling Spotlight
- Launch Terminal and type the following: sudo nano /etc/hostconfig
- Navigate using the arrow keys down the following entry: SPOTLIGHT=-YES-
- Change SPOTLIGHT=-YES- to SPOTLIGHT=-NO- and save it.
- Next, you'll want to disable the index by typing the following in the Terminal:

 mdutil -i off /

And to erase the current Spotlight index, type:

mdutil -E /

Re-Enable Spotlight
- follow the same steps as above, but change SPOTLIGHT=-NO- to SPOTLIGHT=-YES-
- type mdutil -i on / in the Terminal
- Reboot, and Spotlight is back as usual  

Entered by smurphy on Thursday, 14 May 2009 @ 12:06:54  
Configuration - Apple Mac-mini, # Hits: 86338
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Question ? How to get KUbuntu onto a macmin 2,1   [
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 The issue with the Mac Mini 2,1 is that while it has an x64 processor (Core 2 Duo), it has a 32-bit EFI implementation. So getting a boot-loader to load an EFI loader is not that easy. Below are some links to help handling this:

 

Entered by admin on Thursday, 12 May 2016 @ 20:27:01  
Configuration - Apple Mac-mini, # Hits: 33728
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Question ? How can In use a crypted Filesystem ?   [
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 To use a crypted Filesystem - you first need to actually create it. I came accross an article showing me how to do it using cryptsetup. Check it out under http://luks.endorphin.org. Note that this is the upcoming standard for filesystem encryption under linux
LUKS was designed according to TKS1, a template design developed in [TKS1] for secure key setup. LUKS closely reassembles the structure recommended in the TKS1 paper, but also adds meta data for cipher setup management and LUKS also supports for multipe keys/passphrases. Why LUKS?
- compatiblity via standardization,
- secure against low entropy attacks,
- support for multiple keys,
- effective passphrase revocation,
- free
For creating the Crypted Filesystem - I assume using the /dev/sda1 device (USB-Drive). Replace all instances of sda1 with the device you require.:

modprobe aes
modprobe dm-crypt
cryptsetup -c aes-cbc-essiv:sha256 -y -s 256 luksFormat /dev/sda1

WARNING!
========
This will overwrite data on /dev/sda1 irrevocably.

Are you sure? (Type uppercase yes): YES
Enter LUKS passphrase:
Verify passphrase:
cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda1 cryptfs
Enter LUKS passphrase:
key slot 0 unlocked.

mke2fs -j -m 0 /dev/mapper/cryptfs
[...Formatting informations removed...]
tune2fs -c 0 -i 0 /dev/mapper/cryptfs
mkdir /cryptfs
mount /dev/mapper/cryptfs /cryptfs

This will setup up your crypted Partition and mount it under /cryptfs.
Unmount the Partition and lock the encrypted Filesystem cleanly for security

umount /cryptfs
cryptsetup luksClose cryptfs

and you're done. If you now want to add some more passwords - use cryptsetup to do so:

cryptsetup luksAddKey /dev/sda1
Enter any LUKS passphrase:
key slot 0 unlocked.
Enter new passphrase for key slot:

This added a new passphrase. Remove it using a similar command.

cryptsetup luksDelKey /dev/sda1 1

where 1 is the slot the key was stored in. Make sure you don't erase your master Key ... Would be bad if you couldn't access the encrypted FS anymore.
As I'm lazy to remember all that - I usually write wrapper scripts I use at home for mounting these devices.
Check it out in the donwload section.

Usage:  mount_crypted.sh    
        This Program manipulates crypted partitions

         mount          Mount a crypted partition
         umount         Unmount a crypted partition
         addkey         Add a new access key to the encrypted
         delkey         remove a key from the encrypted - don't use 0
                        Filesystem/Partition. 8 Max.
         new_partition  Create a new encrypted partition
                        * Warning - this will destroy all data on it
         device         Device to work on. e.g. /dev/sda1
         enc_module     Encryption module. Usually aes, or padlock if you have
                        a padlock accellerator chip as found on recent VIA Nemiah CPU's

Examples:
        mount_crypted.sh new_partition /dev/sda1 aes
        mount_crypted.sh mount /dev/sda1 aes
        mount_crypted.sh addkey /dev/sda1
        mount_crypted.sh delkey /dev/sda1 aes 2
        mount_crypted.sh umount /dev/sda1

In case someone screws his partition - and needs a static version - check this static version of cryptsetup out. 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 01 February 2006 @ 22:52:21  
Cryptography stuff - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 107612
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Question ? How can I manipulate X509 certificates ?   [
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 Display the contents of a certificate:
#openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -text

Display the certificate serial number:
#openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -serial

Display the certificate subject name:
#openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -subject

Display the certificate subject name in RFC2253 form:
#openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -subject -nameopt RFC2253

Display the certificate subject name in oneline form on a terminal supporting UTF8:
#openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -subject -nameopt oneline,-escmsb

Display the certificate MD5 fingerprint:
#openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -fingerprint

Display the certificate SHA1 fingerprint:
#openssl x509 -sha1 -in cert.pem -noout -fingerprint

Convert a certificate from PEM to DER format:
#openssl x509 -in cert.pem -inform PEM -out cert.der -outform DER

Convert a certificate to a certificate request:
#openssl x509 -x509toreq -in cert.pem -out req.pem -signkey key.pem

Convert a certificate request into a self signed certificate using extensions for a CA:
#openssl x509 -req -in careq.pem -extfile openssl.cnf -extensions v3_ca -signkey key.pem -out cacert.pem

Sign a certificate request using the CA certificate above and add user certificate extensions:
#openssl x509 -req -in req.pem -extfile openssl.cnf -extensions v3_usr -CA cacert.pem -CAkey key.pem -CAcreateserial

Set a certificate to be trusted for SSL client use and change set its alias to ``Steve's Class 1 CA''
#openssl x509 -in cert.pem -addtrust clientAuth -setalias "Steve's Class 1 CA" -out trust.pem

To convert a certificate from PEM to DER:
#openssl x509 -in input.crt -inform PEM -out output.crt -outform DER

To convert a certificate from DER to PEM: #openssl x509 -in input.crt -inform DER -out output.crt -outform PEM

To convert a key from PEM to DER:
#openssl rsa -in input.key -inform PEM -out output.key -outform DER

To convert a key from DER to PEM:
#openssl rsa -in input.key -inform DER -out output.key -outform PEM  

Entered by smurphy on Monday, 26 March 2007 @ 21:00:18  
Cryptography stuff - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 98312
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Question ? How can I generate self signed certificates for various services ?   [
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 First - make sure you have the openssl package installed and have created a local Certification authority.
When talking about fqdn - the Full Qualified Domain Naeme is meant. This - to ensure you find your certificates after - and link them to the right service/site.
After that - create a private key with:

openssl genrsa -aes128 512/1024 > fqdn.key
Generating RSA private key, 512 bit long modulus
......................++++++++++++
....++++++++++++
e is 65537 (0x10001)

This will ask you for a password. If for any reason you don't want a password to be entered every time you want to use the certificate - skip the -aes128 part.
Once the Key created - you need to create a certification request

openssl req -new -key fqdn.key > fqdn.csr
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:New York
Locality Name (eg, city) []:New York
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:Internet Widgits Pty Ltd
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:Demo Certificate Creation
Common Name (eg, YOUR name) []:www.newyork.com
Email Address []:postmaster@newyork.com

Please enter the following 'extra' attributes
to be sent with your certificate request
A challenge password []:
An optional company name []:

Make sure the Common Name matches the Full Qualified Domain name of the Service you want to use the certificate for.
Once the request created - you need to let your local CA sign the certificate using:

openssl ca -policy policy_anything -out fqdn.crt -infiles fqdn.csr
[... Loads of stuff removed ...]
Certificate is to be certified until Dec 29 09:29:23 2006 GMT (365 days)
Sign the certificate? [y/n]:y
1 out of 1 certificate requests certified, commit? [y/n]y

Now you're done.
If you're looking to create a pem-file - here is a little help for it - used b.e. to create a Key for Cyrus-Imap.

dd if=/dev/urandom of=random.rnd count=1
openssl req -new -x509 -days 365 -nodes -out fqdn.pem -keyout fqdn.pem
openssl gendh -rand random.rnd 512 >> fqdn.pem
openssl x509 -subject -dates -fingerprint -noout -in fqdn.pem

This will generate you a fine certificate for use with cyrus. 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 01 February 2006 @ 22:53:06  
Cryptography stuff - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 98204
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Question ? Is there a way to easily check a valid ssl connection ?   [
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 The easyest way would be to go on it with a web-browser.
However - openssl provides a very nice tool for handling exactly this. Check out the options of:
openssl s_client -connect [IP Address]:PORT

$ openssl s_client -connect www.microsoft.com:443
CONNECTED(00000003)
depth=2 /CN=Microsoft Internet Authority
verify error:num=20:unable to get local issuer certificate
verify return:0
---
Certificate chain
 0 s:/C=US/ST=washington/L=Redmond/O=Microsoft/OU=mscom/CN=www.microsoft.com
   i:/DC=com/DC=microsoft/DC=corp/DC=redmond/CN=Microsoft Secure Server Authority
 1 s:/DC=com/DC=microsoft/DC=corp/DC=redmond/CN=Microsoft Secure Server Authority
   i:/CN=Microsoft Internet Authority
 2 s:/CN=Microsoft Internet Authority
   i:/C=US/O=GTE Corporation/OU=GTE CyberTrust Solutions, Inc./CN=GTE CyberTrust Global Root
---
Server certificate
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----
subject=/C=US/ST=washington/L=Redmond/O=Microsoft/OU=mscom/CN=www.microsoft.com
issuer=/DC=com/DC=microsoft/DC=corp/DC=redmond/CN=Microsoft Secure Server Authority
---
No client certificate CA names sent
---
SSL handshake has read 4078 bytes and written 316 bytes
---
New, TLSv1/SSLv3, Cipher is AES128-SHA
Server public key is 1024 bit
Compression: NONE
Expansion: NONE
SSL-Session:
    Protocol  : TLSv1
    Cipher    : AES128-SHA
    Session-ID: 860400006196E94CAEE25E39784C3F1BC2906EDEF26C047F91CB4C6FAB7CC313
    Session-ID-ctx:
    Master-Key: FE88DF3710EE1DBE6A69F841178D9612C7FD24F3B693CBED4FAD0B3866E88DE728F90D8228DB2A3A909A80FA5CDE7F54
    Key-Arg   : None
    Start Time: 1206022615
    Timeout   : 300 (sec)
    Verify return code: 20 (unable to get local issuer certificate)
---

After that - you can get the data as wanted, b.e. GET / HTTP/1.0 with 2xENTER.

here are also options like -no_tls1 and -no_ssl2 that let you specify which version of SSL/TLS that you want to connect with. The -showcerts and -debug options are also very nice - especially if some issue exist with the certificate.  

Entered by smurphy on Thursday, 20 March 2008 @ 15:18:12  
Cryptography stuff - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 97262
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Question ? Are there ways to check certificate purposes ?   [
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 There are indeed using openssl:

openssl x509 -in cacert.pem -noout -purpose -subject

will return you an entire bunch of capabilities your certificate works with.


openssl x509 -in cert.pem -noout -purpose -subject
Certificate purposes:
SSL client : Yes
SSL client CA : Yes
SSL server : Yes
SSL server CA : Yes
Netscape SSL server : Yes
Netscape SSL server CA : Yes
S/MIME signing : Yes
S/MIME signing CA : Yes
S/MIME encryption : Yes
S/MIME encryption CA : Yes
CRL signing : Yes
CRL signing CA : Yes
Any Purpose : Yes
Any Purpose CA : Yes
OCSP helper : Yes
OCSP helper CA : Yes
subject= /C=DE/ST=Bayern/L=City/O=OrganizationOU=Home/CN=xxxxxxx.xxxxxxx.xxx/emailAddress=xxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.xxx

 

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 14 November 2008 @ 16:15:21  
Cryptography stuff - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 95277
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Question ? For a website that talks about security you have an invalid security certificate !   [
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 The certificate itself is valid. The Certification Authority actually is one I have created myself - so my own certification authority. What is more secure than the key's you have signed yourself ? Even a third party certification authority would not provide me that level of sdecurity.

And the most secure Certificate is actually the one you sign yourself, of course with High-Bit encryption. Check the certificate Details and the CA Details. You'll notice that the same person issued them on this site.

Main reason is I also choosed to sign my key's myself is that for some path's I require a valid client-side certificate - signed by the same CA the WebServer is signed. So - I don't really have a choice. A Verisign Certificate for 1 Server and 1 Client would cost me more than 3000 US$ ... That's defenitly too much for a Hobby.

Note that several Signing authorities have been compromised in the past to start phishing attacks. I had the choice to buy a Cheap Certificate Signing, or do it myself. 

Entered by smurphy on Tuesday, 13 May 2008 @ 21:36:05  
Cryptography stuff - PHP Phobos, # Hits: 82438
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Question ? What eBooks can I read with the Sony eBook reader PRS-505 ?   [
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 The following formats are supported out of the Box:

* EPUB
* BBeB Book
* PDF
* RTF
* TXT

In case you have eBooks in other formats - you will have to convert these. Best is the tool "Calibre" which runs under Linux/Mac OS-X/Windows using Python. However it will not convert all formats.
For all converting eBook's from other formats. I has avered that runnig the html-output through tidy - produces a way better output in LRF or ePub after it has been sanitized by tidy.

NOTE: Due to German Law, I am not allowed to publish the following tools here. Also - providing this information is just a hint for people like me, who buy their secure eBooks, and just want to convert these into a format suitable for their Reading Device !

For the special Secure eReader Format - you will need to find a tool called eReader2html (it's a python script). With this tool, you will be able to convert the Secure eReader format file into a HTML file, which can then be converted to the Sony PRS-505 native LRF format by using Calibre.

For the secure MobiPocket format, seek for mobidedrm in your favorite search machine. For this though, you'll need an ID which you can get by installing a mobipocket-reader software as found on www.mobipocket.com. Once the DRM removed, you can use Calibre to import it into your eBook library.

In case you are still uncertain as what to take, check out the WikiPedia E-Book Conversion entry.  

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 20 February 2009 @ 17:15:15  
eBooks - eBook Reader / PRS-505, # Hits: 70747
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Question ? Can I manage my eBook Lbrary under another OS than windows ?   [
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 Yes. Check out Kovid Goyal's libprs500 project supports the Sony PRS-505/500 and it's GUI frontend Calibre.
It has very good version tools allowing people to convert eBooks previously stored in HTML, PDF, TXT, Microsoft Reader (.lit), IDPF/Open eBook (.epub) into Sony's format, and with a little bit of search on Google - you may also find a converter for the Secure eReader format. 

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 20 February 2009 @ 17:23:00  
eBooks - eBook Reader / PRS-505, # Hits: 70471
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Question ? Can I personalize my PRS-505 eBook ?   [
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 This is indeed possible. Check out the PRSCustomizer which allows you to partly modify the features of the PRS-505, and also add you personal Details to the About section of that device.

A more detailed information (in German language though) can be found in this Forum Thread

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 20 February 2009 @ 17:27:27  
eBooks - eBook Reader / PRS-505, # Hits: 70340
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Question ? Where can I buy/find some eBooks ?   [
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 Check out the Web Links, eBooks section.

For a start though, you can also have a look at the E-Book Uploads section from mobilread.com.

Google has also a book-search page. Check it out at the Google Book Search Interface

baencd has quite lots of free eBooks too. Check it out.

for the SciFi Fans out there - check out the following links:
http://www.suvudu.com/freelibrary/
http://craphound.com/novels.php
http://www.sc2.com/e-books/
http://www.ebookmall.com/categories/CATID35.htm
Especially - check out http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/ - they have some promotional CD' s with really great stuff !!!
http://www.epubbooks.com
http://www.smashwords.com/ - Some free books here.

Some authors do put some of their eBooks online for free. This is a list of known sites - small so far, but maybe it will grow with time.

 

Entered by smurphy on Monday, 23 February 2009 @ 15:58:30  
eBooks - eBook Reader / PRS-505, # Hits: 70209
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Question ? Common connectors for LiPo batteries   [
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 Check out the nice page on LiPo batteries explaining all details about them A Guide to Understanding LiPo Batteries


  • B1 - Deans (T) type main connector - Female & Male. Used for main connection to speed controllers and motors. Used for medium to high current draw. HOBBYWING chooses this connection mainly
  • B2 - JST / BEC type main connector - Female & Male. Used for main connection to speed controllers and motors. Used for low current draw
  • B3 - Tamiya main battery plug usually used on Car and Boat batteries (NiCd / NiMh) - Female & Male
  • B4 - Bullet Connectors - Female & Male. Single wire connectors, available in a range of different sizes to suit current draw / load requirements from 2mm to 8mm
  • B5 - HXT Connectors - Female & Male. Available in 3.5mm and 4.00mm sizes. Used for main battery connectors for medium / high power applications
  • B6 - Traxxas Connectors - Male & Female. Mainly used on high current draw car and boat batteries
  • B7 - XT60 Connectors - Male & Female. Used for high current draw battery connections
  • B8 - EC3 Connectors - Male & Female. Used for high current draw battery connections
  • B9 - Flight Power / Thunder Power (FP / TP) LiPo Balance Charger plug - Female & Male
  • B10 - Hyperion / PolyQuest (HP / PQ) LiPo Balance Charger plug - Female & Male
  • B11 - JST-XHR (XH) LiPo Balance Charger plug - Female & Male
  • B12 - JST-EHR (EH) LiPo Balance Charger plug - Female & Male

Check the below picture and list for an overview (kindly taken from Hobbywing - for having a local archive). 

Entered by admin on Thursday, 26 May 2016 @ 09:21:55  
Electronics - RC Models, # Hits: 31369

Attach   Battery connectors  [ 41,037 bytes - image/jpeg ]
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Question ? RC Batteries: Status   [
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 The Status in RC Batteries gives a very fast overview on the actual real health of the LiPo pack. To make understanding easier, the explanation will be based on a real example - as shown below.

Battery: 1300mAh 3S1P 45C HobbyKing Nano-Tech
Status: FOM1.15, MP0.72, IR ~7mΩ σ2mΩ 

We have here 4 values, FOM, MP, IR ~ and IR σ.
FOM tells us that from the expected 30C, we have more than expected. Good. 30C is a fictive value from experience. It is not linked to what the manufacturer promised us.
MP tells us that from the "promised" 45C we get only 72%. Bad
IR ~ average shows us 7mΩ per cell. There are way better cells out there. OK, but not excellent either.
IR σ is the Variance, telling us how many mΩ apart the individual cells are. Remember that the worst cell defines the overall state of the pack. In general, the smaller the σ value the better.

Warning

FOM0.02, MP0.06, IR ~111mΩ σ253

In case the IR ~/ IR σ are displayed in red color - it means the variance between the cells is higher than the cell average. This is an indication that one cell of the pack is way worse than all others and that this pack can explode if not charged using a Balancer-capable charger. Best would be to retire this pack ASAP!

More detailed explanation on each information type:

  • FOM: Figure of Merit is a calculation that uses measured cell internal resistance and normalizes it to cell capacity. It is very useful when comparing packs of different sizes and from different manufacturers
    The meaning is as below, taking into account that a FOM=1 means a 30C Cell able to deliver 30C based on the cell with the highest IR.

    • FOM < 1: below average < 30C capable
    • FOM == 1: average - 30C capable
    • FOM > 1: good - More than 30C capable
    • FOM >> 1: outstanding - much more than 30C capable

  • MP: Manufacturer's Promise is there to tell us if the C-Rating of the LiPo pack is actually accurate.
    Based on what the Manufacturer claims the pack is capable to deliver, we calculate the actual C-Rate based on the worst cell's Internal resistance.
    The relative number out of there tells us how good the C-Rating statement of the Manufacturer is.

    • MP == 1: Very good. The proclaimed rating matches the mesured one
    • MP < 0 : No good. The LiPo pack delivers less than claimed
    • MP > 1 : Excellent - The LiPo pack delivers more than claimed

  • IR ~: This is the Average Internal Resistance of all cells. Average value is taking into account how the cells are arranged (Serial or Parallel) and computes an overall average. In the battery details view, the color will change accordingly depending on the overall IR of the pack.

    • Green: IR < = 6mOhm : Excellent
    • Yellow: 6mOhm < IR < = 12mOhm: Good/Reasonable
    • Orange: 12mOhm < IR < = 20mOhm: Aging signs
    • Red: 20mOhm < IR : Read for retirement

  • IR σ: The variance of the Internal Resistance tells us how similar the cells internal resistance actually is. The smaller the IR σ, the better. The bigger the difference, and the older the cells probably are. Remember that the overall LiPo pack capability is defined by the worst cell in that same pack!
    The danger of the IR difference is that cells will be discharged differently. The worst cell will generate most heat that needs dissipation in the pack, and reach lower voltage levels first. Also - if charged without balancer control the worst cell can very fast be overcharged which can cause an explosion of that cell.

utf8_general_ci 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 08 June 2016 @ 10:33:44  
Electronics - RC Models, # Hits: 31217
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Question ? RC Batteries: Battery life cycle listing   [
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 The Status in RC Batteries gives a very fast overview on the actual real health of the LiPo pack. To make understanding easier, the explanation will be based on a real example - as shown below. Note that not all data is always entered, so some values may not show up.

Battery: 1300mAh 3S1P 45C HobbyKing Nano-Tech
Status: FOM 1.15 @ 39 chrgs | Max I: 32A | chrg. 1.00C | IR ~7.00mΩ | IR σ 2mΩ @ 21°C | Real 32.53C | cap. 100.77%

- FOM tells us that from the expected 30C, we have more than expected. Good.
- 39 charge cycles so far
- Max recommended continuous current draw is 32A
- Battery has been charged with 1C
- IR ~ average shows us 7mΩ per cell. There are way better cells out there. OK, but not excellent either.
- IR σ is the Variance, telling us how many mΩ apart the individual cells are. Remember that the worst cell defines the overall state of the pack. In general, the smaller the σ value the better. Note the temperature at which the IR measurement has been taken is recorded
- Real C is the calculated real C Rating based on the worst cell IR of the pack. - 100.77% of the current that has been charged into the pack has been discharged. usually a higher value than 100% is due to temperature change of the pack during the process


Warning

FOM0.02, MP0.06, IR ~111mΩ σ253

In case the IR ~/ IR σ are displayed in red color - it means the variance between the cells is higher than the cell average. This is an indication that one cell of the pack is way worse than all others and that this pack can explode if not charged using a Balancer-capable charger. Best would be to retire this pack ASAP!

More detailed explanation on each information type:

  • chrgs.: Actuall number of charge/discharge cycles of the Pack. In other words, how many times has this Pack been used.

  • FOM: Figure of Merit is a calculation that uses measured cell internal resistance and normalizes it to cell capacity. It is very useful when comparing packs of different sizes and from different manufacturers
    The meaning is as below, taking into account that a FOM=1 means a 30C Cell (able to deliver 30C based on it's internal cell witrh the highest IR.

    • FOM < 1: below average < 30C capable
    • FOM == 1: average - 30C capable
    • FOM > 1: good - More than 30C capable
    • FOM >> 1: outstanding - much more than 30C capable


  • MAX I: Regarding the estimate of the "Maximum recommended average current draw to prevent pack damage" - the max current is the square root of (6*capacity/IR)

    The calculation of the FOM/Current draw were developed by Mark Forsyth and Wayne Giles. As always we emphasize that this is just a pragmatic rule of thumb based on extensive practical battery testing that seems to reflect practice fairly well over a wide range of LiPos and capacities - although some recent cells like the Turnigy Graphines do better than predicted. It has some theoretical basis in a maximum allowable % of energy dissipated internally (6 Watts/AmpHr) but we don't rely on a theoretical explanation. It is a purely empirical observation that has been surprisingly useful to date.

  • Real: Computed value of the Real discharge capability of the pack using the IR of the worst cell in the pack. This is the real discharge capability of the pack.
    Note: In case Real C Value is displayed in orange, it just means that this pack can be used above the recommended Max I!

  • cap: percentage of capacity charged and extracted later. This is usually done doing charge/discharge cycles. Around 100% and the pack provides the same amount of capacity as has been put inside.

  • chrg: Current used to charge the cells. 1C means that a pack with 1000mAh has been changed using 1A

  • IR ~: This is the Average Internal Resistance of all cells. Average value is taking into account how the cells are arranges (Serial or Parallel) and computes an overall average. In the battery details view, the color will change accordingly depending on the overall IR of the pack.

    • Green: IR < = 6mΩ : Excellent
    • Yellow: 6mΩ < IR < = 12mΩ: Good/Reasonable
    • Orange: 12mΩ < IR < = 20mΩ: Aging signs
    • Red: 20mΩ < IR : Read for retirement


  • IR σ: The variance of the Internal Resistance tells us how similar the cells internal resistance actually is. The smaller the IR σ, the better. The bigger the difference, and the older the cells probably are. Remember that the overall LiPo pack capability is defined by the worst cell in that same pack!

 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 08 June 2016 @ 12:04:03  
Electronics - RC Models, # Hits: 30457
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Question ? FOM: Figure of Merit   [
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 Figure of Merit is a calculation that uses measured cell internal resistance and normalizes it to cell capacity. It is very useful when comparing packs of different sizes and from different manufacturers. The larger the calculated FOM, the better.

The meaning is as below, taking into account that a FOM=1 means a 30C Cell (able to deliver 30C based on it's internal cell witrh the highest IR.

  • FOM < 1: below average < 30C capable
  • FOM == 1: average - 30C capable
  • FOM > 1: good - More than 30C capable
  • FOM >> 1: outstanding - much more than 30C capable

Example calculator is here.
For more background information on FOM, go here: RC Groups Forum

Example calculation of FOM and its meaning from the rc-forum:

I calc C this way, C=370mV/capacity/IR, where 370mV is 1/10 of a lipo
 cell's nominal voltage. 

as an example my Turnigy 6S5000 has an IR of 2.4mohms/cell.
so it's C=370/5/2.4=30.8C.

or, 370000/5000/2.4=30.8

divide left & right by 30.8, 

that's exactly 12000/5000/2.4=1. 

It means a FOM=1 cell IS a 30C cell. a FOM=0.5 cell is a 15C cell....

 

Entered by admin on Saturday, 04 June 2016 @ 15:20:14  
Electronics - RC Models, # Hits: 30154
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Question ? LiPo Battery internal resistance measurement   [
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 The optimal environment for LiPo batteries depends on what you do with them.

  • Optimal performance: 50 °C to 60 °C. This also means that this is the temperature at which the cell Internal Resistance (IR) is the lowest.
  • Storage temperature: 10 °C to 20 °C. At 10 °C or below, do not charge the cells at more than 4.1V/Cell

The problem now is - as we can't heat up the cells to 50 °C for our testings - to find the coefficient to apply to the temperature at the moment of measuring the cells.

Quote found on the internet of someone having spent quite some time with this topic:
My personal internal resistance number for high performance cells is 12000 / cell capacity, when measured after stabilization at room temp (~21C) for 1 hour minimum.. Anything around or below this number I consider to be outstanding performance.

See the attached Graph for an idea on what influence temperatures have. Also - this graph was taken from the following thread

This is what the Computation will be based on, after applying the correction factor for the temperature.

The discussion can be found here

A very good article around RC LiPo can be found here: Understanding RC LiPo Batteries 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 01 June 2016 @ 14:22:01  
Electronics - RC Models, # Hits: 29921

Attach   LiPo IR Temp curve  [ 151,028 bytes - image/png ]
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Question ? MP: Manufacturers Promise   [
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 Manufacturer's Promise is there to tell us if the C-Rating of the LiPo pack is actually accurate.
Based on what the Manufacturer claims the pack is capable to deliver, we calculate the actual C-Rate based on the worst cell's Internal resistance.
The relative number out of there tells us how good the C-Rating of the Manufacturer is.

  • MP == 1: Very good. The proclaimed rating matches the mesured one
  • MP < 0 : No good. The LiPo pack delivers less than claimed
  • MP > 1 : Excellent - The LiPo pack delivers more than claimed

 

Entered by admin on Tuesday, 07 June 2016 @ 15:28:54  
Electronics - RC Models, # Hits: 29783
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Question ? Max I: Maximum recommended average current draw   [
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 Regarding the estimate of the "Maximum recommended average current draw to prevent pack damage" - the max current is the square root of (6*capacity/IR)

The calculation of the FOM/Current draw were developed by Mark Forsyth and Wayne Giles. As always we emphasise that this is just a pragmatic rule of thumb based on extensive practical battery testing that seems to reflect practice fairly well over a wide range of LiPos and capacities - although some recent cells like the Turnigy Graphines do better than predicted. It has some theoretical basis in a maximum allowable % of energy dissipated internally (6 Watts/AmpHr) but we don't rely on a theoretical explanation. It is a purely empirical observation that has been surprisingly useful to date.  

Entered by admin on Saturday, 04 June 2016 @ 15:17:37  
Electronics - RC Models, # Hits: 29777
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Question ? Borgbackup upgrade   [
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 In the event of an OS update, make sure you updat the borg-binary on the NAS too using:

~# pip3 install -U borgbackup

 

Entered by admin on Tuesday, 05 June 2018 @ 10:18:47  
Internal private group - Server in SolLan, # Hits: 16179
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Question ? LILO won't boot. I get LI   [
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 The problem lies in the Harddisk geometry the BIOS passes to the LILO loader. Unfortunatly, when booting from a normal install, you sometime get your Harddisks parameteres read in LBA, CHS or Large form, this due to the new read of the Partition tables when you changed the partition informations. If the BIOS gave in the harddisk geometry data in LBA, the system will reread the Harddisk geometry in CHS mode, thus the boot will fail.

So, to get this working right, go into the CMOS Setup of your Mainboard, and play around with the Translation Method. Mostly after this error to happen - LARGE or CHS will fix the problem. 

Entered by smurphy on Thursday, 01 September 2005 @ 21:34:55  
Linux General - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 99479
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Question ? How can I boot from the SATA drive 2 of a Software Raid-1 System ?   [
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 As configuration starting point - here is the setup as found on my server:
/dev/sda - Primary S-ATA drive
/dev/sdb - Secondary S-ATA drive

Note that both drives are master drives - as S-ATA does not handle Primary/Secondary stuff.
Having the System up and running - the partitions look like this - assuming they are setup already:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/md0              380M   75M  267M  22% /
/dev/md1               76M  9.8M   63M  14% /boot
/dev/md2              2.9G  378M  2.3G  15% /home
/dev/md5               26G   11G   13G  48% /home/Share
/dev/md6              981M  132K  881M   1% /tmp
/dev/md3              2.0G  1.3G  476M  73% /usr
/dev/md4              4.4G  1.3G  2.7G  32% /var

Note that the Primary root partition is md0 and the boot partition md1. This will be important in the grub-configuration later on.
The following grub.conf file has the following features:
- Has several harddisks to boot from
- uses fallback to jump to the next harddrive in case the first one fails
- prepares the connection of a serial console, while also displaying all stuff on tty0

Assuming you have the following grub.conf file in your /boot partition - which is md1:

# Boot automatically after 30 secs.
timeout 50

# By default, boot the first entry.
default 0

serial --unit=0 --speed=115200 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
terminal --timeout=50 serial console

# Fallback to the second entry.
fallback 1

# Splash-Image...
# splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

# For booting with disc 0 kernel
title  EpiaN (hd0,1)
kernel (hd0,1)/vmlinuz-2.6.13.2-EpiaN root=/dev/md0 
devfs=nomount acpi=ht resume=/dev/md7 splash=silent
read-only console=ttyS0,115200n8 console=tty0 initrd=(hd0,1)/initrd-2.6.13.2-EpiaN.img # For booting with disc 1 kernel title EpiaN (hd1,1) kernel (hd1,1)/vmlinuz-2.6.13.2-EpiaN root=/dev/md0
devfs=nomount acpi=ht resume=/dev/md7 splash=silent
read-only console=ttyS0,115200n8 console=tty0 initrd=(hd1,1)/initrd-2.6.13.2-EpiaN.img # Mandrake Kernel title linux-i686-up-4GB (hd0,1) kernel (hd0,1)/vmlinuz-2.6.11-6mdk-i686-up-4GB root=/dev/md0 devfs=nomount acpi=ht resume=/dev/md7
splash=silent read-only console=ttyS0,115200n8
console=tty0 initrd=(hd0,1)/initrd-i686-up-4GB.img # Mandrake Kernel title linux-i686-up-4GB (hd1,1) kernel (hd1,1)/vmlinuz-2.6.11-6mdk-i686-up-4GB root=/dev/md0 devfs=nomount acpi=ht resume=/dev/md7
splash=silent read-only console=ttyS0,115200n8
console=tty0 initrd=(hd1,1)/initrd-i686-up-4GB.img # For booting with disc 0 kernel - Failsafe title Failsafe (hd0,1) kernel (hd0,1)/vmlinuz root=/dev/md0 devfs=nomount acpi=ht
resume=/dev/md7 splash=silent failsafe read-only
console=ttyS0,115200n8 console=tty0 initrd=(hd0,1)/initrd.img # For booting with disc 1 kernel - Failsafe title Failsafe (hd1,1) kernel (hd1,1)/vmlinuz root=/dev/md0 devfs=nomount acpi=ht
resume=/dev/md7 splash=silent failsafe read-only
console=ttyS0,115200n8 console=tty0 initrd=(hd1,1)/initrd.img

you would issue the following commands to install grub on your harddisks

grub> root (hd0,1)
 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd

grub> setup (hd0) 
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
 Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
 Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"...  16 sectors are
embedded.
succeeded
 Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p
(hd0,1)/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/grub.conf"... succeeded
Done.

grub> root (hd1,1)
 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd

grub> setup (hd1) 
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
 Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
 Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd1)"...  16 sectors are
embedded.
succeeded
 Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd1) (hd1)1+16 p
(hd1,1)/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/grub.conf"... succeeded
Done.

That's it. You're done. Please keep in mind - that the command "root (hdx,x)" determins where the /boot partition is to be found. In the grub.conf file - we're using the "hd0(0.1)/vmlinuz" to actually tell grub to get the kernel files etc. from that partition - which is not mounted - thus directly from "/".
Note the order of the bootable kernels. You'll notice that "title EpiaN (hd0,1)" comes first, then "title EpiaN (hd1,1)". Using the "fallback 1" statement make grub fall back to the second entry - in case the first one is not found - making the system kind of automatically boot the alternate raid-1 drive - in case drive 0 is dead. 

Entered by smurphy on Monday, 26 September 2005 @ 20:04:21  
Linux General - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 99011

Attach   grub.conf.txt  [ 1,875 bytes - text/plain ]

Next  How to reinstall grub from a rescue mode ? 
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Question ? How does SATA Raid work ? Fake or real raid ...   [
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 The short version first:

  • Status of your current setup Yuppers, if you would switch from your current RAID setup to Software RAID, you would have to delete the RAID set in the controller-BIOS (results in complete data loss)
  • MDK tools for RAID setup I don't know what RAID setup utilites come with MDK these days, but you can take it as granted that the kernel comes with SW-RAID support. As it goes for the relation between drives/partitions, logical volumes and all that ... (lean back, relax, this is going to be lengthy

What you have found on the MDK forum is about what I was talking about in my first post ("LVM"/"Software RAID").
In fact, "onboard hardware RAID" - as postulated by the motherboard manufacturers - is in no way a hardware solution. It's a marketing buzz-word, and indeed: you'd probably be better off with a genuine linux software-RAID solution.
The linux SW-RAID-technique is what you might know from Windows as "Dynamic Volumes". Compared to the heapo-onboard solutions SW-RAID has some major advantages. The most interesting one is that you can use partitions for your RAID-volumes instead of whole drives. Time for some rotten ASCII-art, I say :)

Check a detailed explanation here  

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 02 September 2005 @ 00:58:31  
Linux General - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 98362
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Question ? Logitech MX700 mouse configuration with XOrg   [
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 Support for complicated wheel/button mice has come along nicely in Xorg. Gone are the days of using ImPS/2 or ExplorerPS2 protocols (both Microsoft) to talk to the mouse, we can now use the correct HID event device.
These instructions are for an MX700 mouse that is part of the MX Duo/Cordless Desktop MX bundle. See the note below about the difference between this and a standalone MX700 There are two places that configuration needs to be performed, firstly in the main Xorg config file, then in per-user xmodmap config files. We will start with the Xorg config file
As root, load /etc/X11/xorg.conf into your favorite text editor and look for the mouse section. You want it to look more like this:

Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier "Configured Mouse"
  Driver "mouse"
  option "CorePointer"
  option "Name" "Logitech MX700 cordless mouse"
  option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
  option "Protocol" "ExplorerPS/2"
  option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
  option "Buttons" "7"
  option "ButtonMapping" "1 2 3 6 7"
  option "Resolution" "800"
  option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
EndSection

Note Finding the right USB device
The options "Dev Name" and "Dev Phys" are specific to the MX Duo/Cordless Desktop MX's dual receiver. If you have a standalone MX700 you can remove the "Dev Phys" option entirely and change the "Dev Name" option to the name of your mouse, as reported by cat /proc/bus/usb/input/devices Looking at the mouse you might ask why I have configured 10 buttons when it clearly only has 8. The answer is that scroll-up and scroll-down both count as buttons, so it is 10. Three button emulation is disabled because this mouse has 3 main buttons and the 800dpi resolution option is probably ignored, but in theory should be possible.

The second file we must edit is a per-user configuration file. In each user's home directory, create a file called .Xmodmap with the following in it:

pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 8 9 10 4 5

This should ensure that the scrolling buttons are correctly configured when X is loaded, however, if scrolling does not work you may need to run xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap (or place that command in an X startup script).
Restart X and you should have working scrolling and mouse button mapping tools should be able to use the extra buttons. 

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 07 January 2007 @ 22:37:12  
Linux General - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 98254

Next  Logitech MX700 Keyboard configuration for XOrg 
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Question ? How can I reboot the Linux system without access to the disks ?   [
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 Most of the time - you can still access the proc-file system, and access the sysreq-trigger file issue the command:

echo b > /proc/sysrq-trigger

and, using b as command, it will reboot your System.
Check the attached file for a complete description
Here the commands you could use.

'r'     - Turns off keyboard raw mode and sets it to XLATE.

'k'     - Secure Access Key (SAK) Kills all programs on the current virtual
          console. NOTE: See important comments below in SAK section.

'b'     - Will immediately reboot the system without syncing or unmounting
          your disks.

'o'     - Will shut your system off (if configured and supported).

's'     - Will attempt to sync all mounted filesystems.

'u'     - Will attempt to remount all mounted filesystems read-only.

'p'     - Will dump the current registers and flags to your console.

't'     - Will dump a list of current tasks and their information to your
          console.

'm'     - Will dump current memory info to your console.

'v'	- Dumps Voyager SMP processor info to your console.

'0'-'9' - Sets the console log level, controlling which kernel messages
          will be printed to your console. ('0', for example would make
          it so that only emergency messages like PANICs or OOPSes would
          make it to your console.)

'f'	- Will call oom_kill to kill a memory hog process

'e'     - Send a SIGTERM to all processes, except for init.

'i'     - Send a SIGKILL to all processes, except for init.

'l'     - Send a SIGKILL to all processes, INCLUDING init. (Your system
          will be non-functional after this.)

'h'     - Will display help ( actually any other key than those listed
          above will display help. but 'h' is easy to remember :-)

 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 31 August 2005 @ 21:33:20  
Linux General - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 98226

Attach   sysrq.txt  [ 10,208 bytes - text/plain ]
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Question ? How do I prepare the SUSE 10.0 source for compiling an external module ?   [
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 After installing the kernel-source rpm - perform the following steps:

# cd /usr/src/linux
# make mrproper
# make cloneconfig
# make modules_prepare

after that - you can compile an external module 

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 16 April 2006 @ 23:52:09  
Linux General - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 98124
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Question ? Logitech MX700 Keyboard configuration for XOrg   [
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 All of the configuration for the keyboard is performed within the main Xorg config file. As root, load /etc/X11/xorg.conf into your favorite text editor and look for the keyboard section. You want it to look more like this:

Section "InputDevice"
   Identifier      "Logitech Elite Keyboard"
   Driver          "keyboard"
   Option          "CoreKeyboard"
   Option          "XkbRules"      "xorg"
   Option          "XkbModel"      "logiinkseusb"
   Option          "XkbLayout"     "us"
   Option          "XkbVariant"    "intl"
EndSection

The logiinkseusb is not strictly the exact map for this keyboard, but it is awfully close and it is included in Xorg, so there is no need to start editing complicated xkb files. You will want to change the XkbLayout option to the correct country code for your keyboard.
Restart X and you should be able to map all the buttons on your keyboard with the correct names, using something like Gnome's Keyboard Shortcuts preferences item
Kindly taken from the following Howto 

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 07 January 2007 @ 22:36:17  
Linux General - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 98060

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Question ? Thunderbird E-Mail Header extension   [
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 To have a standard E-Mail Header view with scrollbar while using Thunderbird to read E-Mails - get the Header Scroll Extension and add the following to the default configuration of thunderbird:
Edit - Advanced - General - Config Editor
and add the following Integer Value:
mail.headerScroll.maxheight
with a value of 100. Will make mail reading way easyer.  

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 15 October 2006 @ 22:29:01  
Linux General - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 97977
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Question ? How can I do some network troubleshooting ?   [
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  • TCPDump

    tcpdump -i [Network-Device] host [IP-Address]
    

    In case you want to filter more specifically, b.e. filter on host and protocol, use this

    tcpdump -i [Network-Device] -x 'ip host [hostname] and port http'
    

  • Ethereal
    Note that newer versions are called wireshark for the GUI Based tool, the CLI based tool is called tshark - replace were appropriate

    tethereal -i [Network-Device]
    

    If you want to limit on a specific IP-Address, b.e. your workstation IP, use the following

    tethereal -i [Network-Device]  -R ip.addr==[IP-Address]
    

    and if you have the webserver running on a different port as 80 - tell ethereal what tcp-port to interprete as http traffic with the following

    tethereal -i [Network-Device]  -d tcp.port==[Port-Nr],http -R ip.addr==[IP-Address]
    

    Another easy way to filter is:

    tethereal -i [Network-Device] host [host-IP] and port [Port-Nr.]
    

    If you want to dump the output to a file - append: -w output.dump to these strings - and you'll have all data dumped to these files - you can later read/open with ethereal for analisys.

  • IPtraf - provides you an easy way to identify non clean traffic. This means, even if tethereal and tcpdump show you some data, iptraf will not show you a packet count increase in case the data is valid, e.g. a wrong setup VLAN (Unidirectional traffic, missing parts of the tcp/ip traffic messages etc.

  • In case you have https-traffic to monitor - you can use ssldump to have a look at the traffic. this troubleshooting method is also very keen in case you see loads of ssl-decode errors. Try out the following:

    ssldump -ni eth1 -d -k [pem-key] host [host-ip]
    

  • A very keen solution is to also tunnel the traffic from your workstation into an internal machine - to have a specific IP-Address to filter through the advanced recorder. This can be reached by using ssh in tunnel mode from your local machine (note that you'll need a local cli-based ssh solution on the workstation you are working from:

    ssh -L [client-IP]:[client-Port]:[remote-IP]:[remote-port]
    

    once done - connect to the application by using http://localhost[client-port]

 

Entered by smurphy on Tuesday, 21 October 2008 @ 09:43:36  
Linux General - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 95492
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Question ? How to reinstall grub from a rescue mode ?   [
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 Boot into a ubuntu "try" mode or whatever linux system that provides you the possibility to manipulate the harddisk.
You first need to prepare the environment

root@ubuntu:~# mkdir /sda
root@ubuntu:~# mount /dev/sda3 /sda    # this is the / of the existing system
root@ubuntu:~# mount -o bind /dev /sda/dev
root@ubuntu:~# mount -o bind /proc /sda/proc
root@ubuntu:~# chroot /sda /bin/bash
[root@ubuntu /]# mount /dev/sda1 /boot

Then - Install GRUB

[root@ubuntu /]# grub

    GNU GRUB  version 0.95  (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)

 [ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.  For the first word, TAB
   lists possible command completions.  Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
   completions of a device/filename.]

grub> root (hd0,0)
 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> setup (hd0)
 Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... no
 Checking if "/grub/stage1" exists... yes
 Checking if "/grub/stage2" exists... yes
 Checking if "/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
 Running "embed /grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"...  16 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
 Running "install /grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p (hd0,0)/grub/stage2 /grub/grub.conf"
 \ ... succeeded
Done.

grub>quit
[root@ubuntu /]#

After that - undo whatever you have done in reverse order

[root@ubuntu /]# umount /boot
[root@ubuntu /]# exit
root@ubuntu:~# umount /sda/proc
root@ubuntu:~# umount /sda/dev
root@ubuntu:~# umount /dev/sda3

If you reboot - you should see a grub prompt as usual. 

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 15 October 2010 @ 11:25:36  
Linux General - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 88527

Next  How can I boot from the SATA drive 2 of a Software Raid-1 System ? 
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Question ? How can I mount a SMB share under linux ?   [
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 Sometimes, on old systems, we need to mount a samba-share.
Create a file: /etc/cifs.pwd with

~#touch /etc/cifs.pwd
~#chmod 600 /etc/cifs.pwd

And add in that file the login/password file. Content Format is very simple - as follow:

username=smbuser
password=smbpassword

Password/username is in cleartext !

After that - you can mount the share as root with:

~#mount -t smbfs -o credentials=/etc/cifs.pwd  //REMHOSTIP/remotedir /localdir

In this example, /remotedir is the remote Directory/Share and /localdir is the local Directory you mount it in on your local file system. This localdir needs to exist on you local machine.

Example:
Assume the Samba Host is: 192.168.101.56
Remote Share is: /smbtmp
Local mount Directory is: /mnt/smbtmp

We would have:

~#mount -t smbfs -o credentials=/etc/cifs.pwd //192.168.101.56/smbtmp /smb/smbtmp

To make it easy - you add the data to the /etc/fstab file.

//192.168.101.56/smbtmp /mnt/smbtmp smbfs credentials=/etc/cifs.pwd

With this, a simple: "~#mount /mnt/smbtmp" is be enough to mount the samba share.  

Entered by smurphy on Tuesday, 16 November 2010 @ 11:08:52  
Linux General - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 88134
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Question ? How can I control the FAN on my mac mini ?   [
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 So - why should I do something to have a different FAN control on my system ?
Well - quite simple. Under heavy load - my system does not seem to increase the FAN speed - even when the CPU Core's are at 75C, the FAN Speed is at about 2500RPM. I can manually tell the system to increase this - but I want it to be done automatically.
For this - I have written a little script - that can be run as daemon applesmc.sh. Check the attached file section.

What you need is a newer kernel supporting the applesmc kernel module. To be sure this module gets loaded at boot time - enter it into the /etc/modules file - this in a Kubuntu 7.04 system as example. For my mac mini - here are the modules I load at boot:

# /etc/modules: kernel modules to load at boot time.
#
# This file contains the names of kernel modules that should be loaded
# at boot time, one per line. Lines beginning with "#" are ignored.
msr
applesmc

Once this module loaded - use the macmini-fan and applesmc daemon scripts to set it up on boot. See the setup below:

sudo cp applemsc.sh /usr/bin
sudo cp macmini-fan.sh /etc/init.d/macmini-fan
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/macmini-fan /usr/bin/applemsc.sh
sudo update-rc.d macmini-fan defaults
sudo /etc/init.d/macmini-fan start

To check the FAN Status - call that script with the status parameter:

applesmc.sh -s

WARNING: The programs come as they are. They may brake your machine if not used correctly and I will take no responsibility for anything that happens to your computer, environment or whatever burns down !
Always use applesmc.sh daemon script to shutdown itself invoking

applesmc.sh -k

The macmini-fan script does this already on shutdown.
The reason is very simple. When beeing active - this daemon disables the automatic fan control of the system - and takes over the monitoring (by default) by polling every 10seconds what the CORE temperatures look like. If you kill the daemon - it will try to catch the kill signal and issue a command to reset the FAN control to automatic - however this is not always possible...

You have been warned ! When the daemon has started correctly - you see some stuff like this in your syslog (syslog logging is enabled by default. Havn't tried it without).

Sep 14 16:27:26 firebird applesmc: Version: 1.13 $ initialisation succeeded
Sep 14 16:27:26 firebird applesmc: Mode: manual - CPU 52C, FAN @ 2000RPM
Sep 14 16:30:06 firebird applesmc: CPU 57C, FAN @ 2000RPM > 2500RPM
Sep 14 16:31:26 firebird applesmc: CPU 52C, FAN @ 2500RPM > 2000RPM
Sep 14 16:32:36 firebird applesmc: CPU 66C, FAN @ 2000RPM > 2500RPM
...

Check the 2nd line stating Mode change to manual. When stopped - this has to change to auto !
Note the daemon will only log changes that would invoque a RPM change higher than a specified level (default is 500RPM).

A Daemon shutdown would look like this in syslog:

Sep 14 16:20:50 firebird applesmc[27266]: Daemon shutdown requested
Sep 14 16:20:50 firebird applesmc[27266]: Killed process 27002
Sep 14 16:20:50 firebird applesmc[27266]: Mode: auto - CPU 54C, FAN @ 2000RPM

while the console output would look like this:

# ./applesmc.sh -k
> applesmc Daemon shutdown requested
> applesmc Killed process 20139
> applesmc Mode: auto - CPU 51C, FAN @ 2000RPM

 

Entered by smurphy on Thursday, 13 September 2007 @ 23:27:23  
Linux on Apple Hardware - Apple Mac-mini, # Hits: 93919
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Question ? How can I get rid of the GPT signature on a harddrive of the mac-mini ?   [
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 I have decided to give it a try after reading this.
Just make sure you install parted - and issue the command parted. Do the following - if we assume the disk is sda:

parted /dev/sda
mklabel msdos

This will get rid of the GPT signature on the disk, and you can use a standard fdisk/cfdisk program to set up your paritions.

WARNING: Using the mklabel command with parted will erase all partition informations of your harddisk - and you will need to repartition it. If you are smart - you first take a look at the partition using fdisk - change the units - to have the display in sectors, After the parted operation - you can restore the partition informations with fdisk again.

#sudo fdisk /dev/sda
Command (m for help): u
Changing display/entry units to sectors

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders, total 117210240 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *          63    40965749    20482843+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2        40965750    60500789     9767520   83  Linux
/dev/sda3        60500790    64709819     2104515   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4        64709820   117210239    26250210   83  Linux

 

Entered by smurphy on Tuesday, 21 August 2007 @ 23:55:14  
Linux on Apple Hardware - Apple Mac-mini, # Hits: 91710

Next  Is it possible to run linux without mac-os X on a mac-mini ? 
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Question ? Is it possible to run linux without mac-os X on a mac-mini ?   [
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 It is indeed possible. As the EFI (replacement of the BIOS) of the mac mini seems to have a fallback for default partition tables in case no GPT partition table is found - you can just delete the GPT signature as described in the related FAQ - create a new partition and install linux as usual.
Kubuntu 7.04 runs very fine on my little machine here.

NOTE: As it is also possible to run windows XP on that Box - make sure you first create the Bootcamp Driver CD - before repartitioning the harddisk. The BootCamp Image requires MAC-OS X installed as only OS to create a DriverCD for Windows XP SP2 Prefessional.  

Entered by smurphy on Tuesday, 21 August 2007 @ 22:46:00  
Linux on Apple Hardware - Apple Mac-mini, # Hits: 91277

Next  How can I get rid of the GPT signature on a harddrive of the mac-mini ? 
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Question ? How can I tell the kernel which sound board to load ?   [
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 Actually - all you need to tell the sound-driver is which board-layout to load. In the specific case of the mac-mini, edit the alsa configuration file in /etc/modprobe.d and add the following:

options snd-hda-intel model=macmini

This will tell alsa what in/out jacks you have. 

Entered by smurphy on Thursday, 13 September 2007 @ 23:39:55  
Linux on Apple Hardware - Apple Mac-mini, # Hits: 90971
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Question ? Are there benchmarks on the mac-mini regarding different specs ?   [
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 Check out the following 2 Links:
From the Lab: Core 2 Duo Mac mini tests
Mac mini Performance (August 2007)

Note that for the interactive use - make sure you take the fastest harddisk you find.
This makes - on even slower machine - really faster one (From the Interactivity feeling). 

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 26 October 2007 @ 10:31:05  
Linux on Apple Hardware - Apple Mac-mini, # Hits: 90796
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Question ? What startup keys / Boot options to exist on the mac mini ?   [
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 The following is a collection of what I have found on the Net.
Take into account the the following mapping in case you use a keyboard:

    Windows Macintosh
  • CTRL -> COMMANDE
  • ALT -> OPTION

  • C : Forces most Macs to boot from the CD-Rom drive instead of the internal hard drive. Only works with Apple ROM drives and with bootable CD discs.
  • D : Forces the first internal hard drive to be the startup disk.
  • N : Netboot (New World ROM machines only) - Looks for BOOTP or TFTP Server on the network to boot from.
  • R : Forces PowerBooks to reset their screen to default size (helpful if ve been hooked up to an external montior or projector!)
  • T : Target Disk Mode (FireWire) - Puts machines with built-in FireWire into target Disk mode so a system attached with a FireWire cable will have that device show up as a hard drive on their system. Very useful for PowerBooks!
  • Mouse Button Held Down : Ejects any mounted removable media.
  • Shift : Disables all extensions (Mac OS 7-9), or disables Login items when using Mac OS X 10.1.3 or later. Also works when booting Classic mode up just like you were using the OS natively.
  • Option : When using an Open Firmware "New World ROM" capable system, the System Picker will appear and query all mounted devices for bootable systems, returning a list of drives & what OS they have on them. On "Old World" systems the machine will simply boot into s default OS without any Finder windows open.
  • Space bar : Brings up s Extension Manager (or Casady & s Conflict Catcher, if installed) up at startup to allow you to modify your extens ion set.
  • Command-V : Boots Mac OS X into "Verbose Mode", reporting every console message generated during startup. Really shows s going on behind the scenes with your machine on startup!
  • Command-S : Boots Mac OS X into "Single User Mode" - helpful to fix problems with Mac OS X, if necessary.
  • Command-Option : Rebuilds the Desktop (Mac OS 7-9).
  • Command-Option-P-R : Erases PRAM if held down immediately after startup tone. Your machine will chime when s erased the PRAM, most people will hold this combination for a total of 3 chimes to really flush the PRAM out.
  • Command-Option-N-V : Erases NVRAM (Non-Volatile RAM). Used with later Power Macintosh systems mostly.
  • Command-Option-O-F : Boots the machine into Open Firmware (New World ROM systems only).
  • Command-Option-Shift-Delete : Forces your Mac to startup from its internal CD-ROM drive or an external hard drive. Very helpful if you have a 3rd party CD-ROM drive that is not an Apple ROM device.
  • Command-Option-Shift-Delete-#(where #= a SCSI DEVICE ID) : Boot from a specific SCSI device, if you have your 3rd party CD-ROM drive set to SCSI ID 3, you would press "3" as the # in the combination.

 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 09 July 2008 @ 17:24:46  
Linux on Apple Hardware - Apple Mac-mini, # Hits: 89078
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Question ? Is there a listing of the beep codes for the mini ?   [
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 The following beep codes have been found so far.
The beep codes were revised in October 1999,[2] and have been the same since. In addition, on some models, the power LED would flash in cadence.

  • 1 beep = no RAM installed
  • 2 beeps = incompatible RAM types
  • 3 beeps = no good banks
  • 4 beeps = no good boot images in the boot ROM (and/or bad sys config block)
  • 5 beeps = processor is not usable

 

Entered by smurphy on Monday, 06 October 2008 @ 12:02:57  
Linux on Apple Hardware - Apple Mac-mini, # Hits: 87765
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Question ? Dual Pairing bluetooth keyboard under Linux and OS-X ?   [
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 as I do have a mac-mini in tripple boot configuration, I wondered how to get my bluetooth keyboard to work using all operating systems at the same time. For windows, many howto's have been written out there (google). For linux though, emptines is what you get. So - it took me a long time to understand how it works and find a way to get it to work. In fact, the entire trick consists in reading the plist file on the mac-side, and decode it so that the linux side can read it too.

We will first need to find the blued.plist file on the Mac OS-X filesystem you have previously mounted under linux. Get it from
[MountPoint-OS-X-System]/private/var/root/Library/Preferences/blued.plist. Download the attached file plutil.pl into the same directory, and execute it under linux OS.

~# ./plutil.pl blued.plist 
plutil.pl v1.5

Old: blued.plist, from: binary, to: text
Found .plist
TryName: blued.text.plist
TryName: blued.text.plist
BinaryToXML:
Offsets are 1 bytes
Object Refs are 1 bytes
There are 9 objects in the file
The top object is at 0
The Offset Table is at offset 126

Int Lengths = 10
Misc Lengths = 37
String Lengths = 63
Unique Strings = 4
oVal=37755725973e42848271a0bf2743e00d
buf=
N3VXJZc+QoSCcaC/J0PgDQ==
oVal=b8767b7d6422049a32ce75b4ab6c4e33
buf=
uHZ7fWQiBJoyznW0q2xOMw==

In the same directory you will find now a file blued.text.plist. It has all required information we need for further processing.
All you need to do now is to identiy the keyboard.
I did find (code modified):

 (key)58-b0-35-81-28-6e(/key)
                (dict)
                        (key)00-1f-20-05-0a-2c(/key)
                        (data)
                        N3VXJZc+QoSCcaC/J0PgDQ==
                        (/data)
                        (key)00-1f-20-07-38-e4(/key)
                        (data)
                        uHZ7fWQiBJoyznW0q2xOMw==
                        (/data)
                (/dict)


For that, hit the Connect button on the keyboard and make sure it's in discoverable mode.

~$ hcitool scan
Scanning ...
        00:1F:20:05:0A:2C    Logitech MX5500 Keyboard

that's it. Look up the keyboard MAC Address (here 00:1F:20:05:0A:2C) in the bluez.text.plist file, and use the assigned (data) value to convert.
Convert it with:

~# echo -n "N3VXJZc+QoSCcaC/J0PgDQ==" | base64 -d | hexdump -C
00000000  37 75 57 25 97 3e 42 84  82 71 a0 bf 27 43 e0 0d  |7uW%.>B..q..'C..|
00000010

and you're done.
All you have to do now is to put that HEX Value into the linkkeys file. On an ubuntu 11.10 it is /var/lib/bluetooth/58:B0:35:81:28:6E/linkkeys. Just replace the value after the correct identifier:

00:1F:20:07:38:E4 B8767B7D6422049A32CE75B4AB6C4E33 0 4
00:1F:20:05:0A:2C 37755725973E42848271A0BF2743E00D 0 8

you're done.
NOTE that you see it also in the Oval output of the plutil.pl, however you still don't know which device it belongs to.

BTW - in case you need to access the keyboard in a kind of emergency, just putting the keyboard in discoverable mode and hit:

~$ sudo hidd --connect 00:1F:20:05:0A:2C

you can access it without key. 

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 23 December 2011 @ 10:31:24  
Linux on Apple Hardware - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 81126

Attach   plutil.pl  [ 23,196 bytes - application/x-perl ]
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Question ? How can I migrate my iTunes playlists to Amarok ?   [
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 Found a script on the internet that does just that: itunes2m3u.py
Download the script, and make sure you find the iTunes Music Library.xml file. Copy both into the same directory, make sure you have python installed on your Linux machine, and execute the scripte with the iTunes Music Library.xml as argument:

~$ ./itunes2m3u.py iTunes\ Music\ Library.xml

It will dump all existing playlists in the iTunes library file as m3u files.

Import these into Amarok, and you're done.

Source for this script can be found here

Entered by smurphy on Saturday, 23 October 2010 @ 19:06:56  
Linux on Apple Hardware - Apple Mac-mini, # Hits: 79315

Attach   itunes2m3u.py  [ 7,882 bytes - text/x-python ]
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Question ? I seem to have the wrong disk size using MRTG to poll the QNap Device ?   [
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 This comes from the fact that the QNap SNMP Daemon shows the number of blocks, and the block size is set to 4 - if the default block-size is 1024.

Use a multiplier on the MRTG Line to have the correct partition size displayed.
e.g.:

Target[nas_md0_data]: 1.3.6.1.2.1.25.2.3.1.5.33&1.3.6.1.2.1.25.2.3.1.6.33:[COMMUNITY]@[IP-Address] * 4000

This will correct the data output. Of course - if you can do that on the RRD tool display, it would be easier. BTW - if the data is coming in as counter - use 4096 - to adapt to byte-counter. 

Entered by smurphy on Monday, 23 August 2010 @ 16:20:08  
Linux on QNAP Hardware - QNAP SS839 NAS, # Hits: 60816
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Question ? Raid 5 Array won't show up after a cold-boot ?   [
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 This can happen when the Disks won't spin up fast enough. Even if enough disks spin up - it can be quite bad, as it will run in degraded mode or mount the spare-drive into the Raid 5.

Best thing to do, is to login remotely into the SS839 device, and issue the rboot command. This will trigger a warm-boot, and most disks will be hopefully back up. 

Entered by smurphy on Monday, 23 August 2010 @ 16:13:02  
Linux on QNAP Hardware - QNAP SS839 NAS, # Hits: 60716
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Question ? How can I archive Backups automatically on RouterOS ?   [
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 Actually - you can't. Well - it doesn't really make sense to keep the backup archives on the RouterBoard hardware. If it brakes - we want to be able to restore the backup's - right ? So - what we need - is an external system we dump the backups onto - which is going to do the backups.

First of all - we need to create a scheduler run on the routeros

/system scheduler
add comment="Scheduler backup dump" disabled=no interval=1d name="Backup" 
    on-event="/system backup  save name=daily_backup run"    
    start-time=01:01:00

This will take care of the automatic configuration backup. Next - as we don't want everyone to access the routerboard to download the backup-file - we need to add a backup group and user, and set appropriate access rights.

/user group
add name="ftp" policy=ftp,!local,!telnet,!ssh,!reboot,!read,!write,!policy,!test,
    !winbox,!password,!web,!sniff
/user
add address=10.X.X.X/32 comment="Backup User - to gain backups of the router 
    config" disabled=no group=ftp name="backup"

Add a password for the user backup. You'll need it later on.
Make sure that the address 10.X.X.X/32 is the IP-Address of your Linux Backup-server. So - only the user backup user from that IP-Address can access the routerboard through ftp.

On the server - you need curl installed. For this - b.e. on an Ubuntu system, issue

~#sudo aptitude install curl
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Building tag database... Done
The following NEW packages will be automatically installed:
  libcurl3
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  curl libcurl3
0 packages upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 357kB of archives. After unpacking 680kB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] Y
Writing extended state information... Done
Get:1 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main libcurl3 7.16.4-2ubuntu1 [182kB]
Get:2 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main curl 7.16.4-2ubuntu1 [175kB]
Fetched 357kB in 0s (541kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package libcurl3.
(Reading database ... 141553 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libcurl3 (from .../libcurl3_7.16.4-2ubuntu1_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package curl.
Unpacking curl (from .../curl_7.16.4-2ubuntu1_i386.deb) ...
Setting up libcurl3 (7.16.4-2ubuntu1) ...

Setting up curl (7.16.4-2ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for libc6 ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Writing extended state information... Done
Building tag database... Done

However - as it is insecure to provide scripts with passwords that can be seen inside the script or the process table - we'll use the .netrc file the curl program looks in for passwords. Create a file named .netrc in the home directory of the user who is going to perform the backups.

machine 10.X.X.X login backup password XXXXXXXX

Save the file - and make sure the mode is changed to 600 - e.g.:

~#chmod 600 .netrc
~$ ls -l .netrc 
-rw------- 1 backup backup 48 2008-03-14 16:32 .netrc

You should now be ready for a first test. As we'll be using curl - let's do it with curl.

~$ curl -n ftp://backup@10.X.X.X/daily_backup.backup -o backup.config
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  293k  100  293k    0     0  1013k      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 1503k

Ok - the curl call works. All we need to do now - is to write a script and add it into the crontab of the local user. For the script - you can use the backuper.sh. This script has the advantage that it has some checks included - and moans in case something is not working right. So - copy that file to /usr/local/bin on your Linux Server, and add the following into the user's Crontab:

0 20 * * * /usr/local/bin/backuper.sh

This will execute the script every day, 20Minutes after midnight and append the date in reverse order to the name - e.g. 20080317_RB153.backup for March 17th.

Now - it is quite useless to not handle these also for backups. But this would be out of the scope of the local FAQ Entry. Check the Stargate's Backup section for one possibility in handling these.  

Entered by smurphy on Monday, 17 March 2008 @ 09:39:58  
Linux on Routerboards - Routerboard RBxxxAH, # Hits: 97500
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Question ? Blacklist IP through phpAPI and terminate active connections   [
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 Having a self-defending (Passive) web-site, I noticed that executing a script to actually close a firewall takes too long if the attack onto the website is executedthrough parallel requests.
Even though one can limit the WebServer and the firewall to allow only a certain number of communication channels in, it is not enough - as firewalls tend to let pass already opened sessions. This part will require the firewall to actively terminate open connections from the offending IP Address.
This is exactly what the attached script does. It uses the routerOS phpAPI to connect to the firewall and directly lock (during the request) the remote IP out and at the same time terminate all open connections that may be coming from that IP.
This script is just an example on how to do it. Everyone can adapt it for himself.

Note: The attached script is just a prototype. On my site it has been integrated into a function and is called on demand.

Results are as follow [IP does not exist in blacklist yet]:

 > Entered IP 10.10.10.246 into blacklist 
   - Removed active connection *8D41 [10.10.10.246:62000 -> 172.168.0.2:80] 
   - Removed active connection *8D4D [10.10.10.246:62001 -> 172.168.0.2:80] 
   - Removed active connection *8D55 [10.10.10.246:3000 -> 172.168.0.2:53] 
   - Removed active connection *8D59 [10.10.10.246:61997 -> 172.168.0.2:80] 
   - Removed active connection *8D5B [10.10.10.246:61999 -> 172.168.0.2:80] 
   - Removed active connection *8D62 [10.10.10.246:61996 -> 172.168.0.2:80] 
   - Removed active connection *8D75 [10.10.10.246:61998 -> 172.168.0.2:80] 


Results are as follow [IP does exist in blacklist]:

 !!! failure: already have such entry in firewall [IP 10.10.10.246]
   - Removed active connection *8C7A [10.10.10.246:61921 -> 172.168.0.2:80] 
   - Removed active connection *8C7B [10.10.10.246:61920 -> 172.168.0.2:80] 
   - Removed active connection *8C7C [10.10.10.246:61919 -> 172.168.0.2:80] 
   - Removed active connection *8C7D [10.10.10.246:61918 -> 172.168.0.2:80] 
   - Removed active connection *8C7E [10.10.10.246:61923 -> 172.168.0.2:80] 
   - Removed active connection *8C7F [10.10.10.246:61922 -> 172.168.0.2:80]

 

Entered by admin on Friday, 22 April 2016 @ 15:47:34  
Linux on Routerboards - Routerboard RBxxxAH, # Hits: 29468

Attach   blacklist_terminate.php  [ 3,487 bytes - application/octet-stream ]
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Question ? BIOS Updates for Epia-Boards fix DMA-Issues   [
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 BIOS Updates - Several people are experiencing lockups with the EPIA Boards, often these lockups are encountered during large data transfers, this is most likely a DMA problem and many have reported that it goes away when using the following BIOS update -- Note: Reports do suggest that the M series boards work well with the newest BIOS update, however users of CL and MII boards still report the lockups. These are clearly "test" BIOS and you should not apply them unless you are having the lockup problem. Also, many reports of hard freezes are due to the longhaul driver that is in the currrent kernel, before you apply one of these BIOS updates, make sure that your longhaul driver is not being controlled by a daemon. 

Entered by smurphy on Monday, 05 September 2005 @ 19:15:39  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 119819

Next  How can I flash the BIOS on the Epia 10000M mini-ITX system under Linux ? 
Next  How can I flash the BIOS on the Epia 10000M mini-ITX system under DOS ? 
Next  Lex CV860A / Epia 5000 system instability 
Next  How do I update the Bios on the Epia SP8000E Board ? 
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Question ? The Vt1211 sensors-module driver does not work under kernel 2.6.13 ?   [
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 The 2.6.13 kernel requires an updated vt1211 driver. Using an old vt1211 driver gives a kernel "Oops" when sysfs files are accessed to monitor the hw.

A patch for 2.6.13 is available at http://hem.bredband.net/ekmlar/linux-2.6.13-vt1211.patch.txt or attached to this FAQ here.
This patch is to be applied to a plain-kernel 2.6.13.
You'll find more informations on that page...
you can alternatively also grab a copy of the plain vt1211.c file - The driver can be built manually with:

 echo "obj-m := vt1211.o" > Makefile
 make -C /path/to/your/kernel2.6/source/dir SUBDIRS=$PWD modules

The patch also works with kernel 2.6.13.2. 

Entered by smurphy on Tuesday, 20 September 2005 @ 23:52:42  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 118606

Attach   linux-2.6.13-vt1211.patch.txt  [ 34,161 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   vt1211.c  [ 30,614 bytes - text/x-csrc ]

Next  Building the 2.6 kernel for the Epia SP8000E Board with Nemiah CPU 
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Question ? How can I flash the BIOS on the Epia 10000M mini-ITX system under Linux ?   [
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 This one took me some time to find out.
LinuxBIOS v2 contains a flash utility called "flash_rom". It can be found under LinuxBIOS - in the package under freebios2/util/flash_and_burn.
This utility can be used to flash the bios instead of awdflash.

# ./flash_rom --help
The arguments are:
usage: ./flash_rom [-rwv] [-c chipname] [-s exclude_start] [-e exclude_end] [file]
-r: read flash and save into file
-w: write file into flash (default when file is specified)
-v: verify flash against file
-c: probe only for specified flash chip
-s: exclude start position
-e: exclude end postion
 If no file is specified, then all that happens
 is that flash info is dumped

A tipical flash-session would be:

./flash_rom -r test.bin
The arguments are:
-r
test.bin
Calibrating timer since microsleep sucks ... takes a second
Setting up microsecond timing loop
260M loops per second
OK, calibrated, now do the deed
Enabling flash write on VT8235...OK
Trying Am29F040B, 512 KB
probe_29f040b: id1 0x24, id2 0xa6
Trying At29C040A, 512 KB
probe_jedec: id1 0xbf, id2 0xb6
Trying Mx29f002, 256 KB
probe_29f002: id1 0xbf, id2 0xb6
Trying SST29EE020A, 256 KB
probe_jedec: id1 0xbf, id2 0xb6
Trying SST28SF040A, 512 KB
probe_28sf040: id1 0x24, id2 0xa6
Trying SST39SF020A, 256 KB
probe_jedec: id1 0xbf, id2 0xb6
SST39SF020A found at physical address: 0xfffc0000
Part is SST39SF020A
Reading Flash...done

Get the new Bios - and burn it with:

# ./flash_rom -w epiam_116_fixed.bin
The arguments are:
-w
epiam_116_fixed.bin
Calibrating timer since microsleep sucks ... takes a second
Setting up microsecond timing loop
252M loops per second
OK, calibrated, now do the deed
Enabling flash write on VT8235...OK
Trying Am29F040B, 512 KB
probe_29f040b: id1 0x24, id2 0xa6
Trying At29C040A, 512 KB
probe_jedec: id1 0xbf, id2 0xb6
Trying Mx29f002, 256 KB
probe_29f002: id1 0xbf, id2 0xb6
Trying SST29EE020A, 256 KB
probe_jedec: id1 0xbf, id2 0xb6
Trying SST28SF040A, 512 KB
probe_28sf040: id1 0x24, id2 0xa6
Trying SST39SF020A, 256 KB
probe_jedec: id1 0xbf, id2 0xb6
SST39SF020A found at physical address: 0xfffc0000
Part is SST39SF020A
Programming Page: 0063 at address: 0x0003f000

You should then reread the installed bios from Flash - and compare it against the one you have just uploaded using:

 diff &lt;newfile&gt; &lt;oldfile&gt;

There should be no difference between the files ! 

Entered by smurphy on Saturday, 18 August 2007 @ 23:57:58  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia M10000 / Hush, # Hits: 98977

Next  How can I flash the BIOS on the Epia 10000M mini-ITX system under DOS ? 
Next  BIOS Updates for Epia-Boards fix DMA-Issues 
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Question ? How do I configure the Conexant Accessrunner ADSL-Module for the CV860A Board ?   [
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]

 First of all - I had most problems due to a not working firmware. So try out different versions of Firmware. The one working for me can be found here. Find other firmware links and more documentation under the SpeedLink page.
Also - it is very difficult to actually find decent informations. I found some kind Help on the conexant Maillinglist

Please Note that this FAQ refers to setting up a Link in Germay - using a Annex-B module, however it should also be valid for other Annex-Modules.
Also - as you are installing a quite complex hardware on a complex system - I assume you know how to patch/compile/install kernels and configure a ppp-link - and won't go into details here.

So - let's go for it. Download the conexant usbatm patches for the 2.6.14.x kernels on the project page. Unpack these into the right kernel-source directory:

cd /usr/src/linux
tar jxf ~/usbatm-20050216.tar.bz2
drivers/usb/atm/cxacru.c
drivers/usb/atm/Kbuild
drivers/usb/atm/Kconfig
drivers/usb/atm/usbatm.c
drivers/usb/atm/usbatm.h

Kernels 2.6.14.5 and higher already have the conexant drivers - so don't apply the patch if you use a newer version.
Configure the kernel to have support for the Conexant Chipset.

Device Driver -> Networking Support -> Networking Options ->
 Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) (EXPERIMENTAL)
 Classical IP over ATM (EXPERIMENTAL)
[*] Do NOT send ICMP if no neighbour (EXPERIMENTAL)
 LAN Emulation (LANE) support (EXPERIMENTAL)
 Multi-Protocol Over ATM (MPOA) support (EXPERIMENTAL)
 RFC1483/2684 Bridged protocols
[*] Per-VC IP filter kludge

Device Driver -> USB Support ->
 Support for USB
......
---   USB Host Controller Drivers
   EHCI HCD (USB 2.0) support
[ ]     Full speed ISO transactions (EXPERIMENTAL)
[ ]     Root Hub Transaction Translators (EXPERIMENTAL)
   OHCI HCD support
   UHCI HCD (most Intel and VIA) support
 Connexant Accessrunner USB support

B.e. you can use the following kernel-config for a 2.6.12.x kernel. Copy that file into your kernel-source root directory and perform a make oldconfig. Compile and install the kernel and the modules.
The Firmware is kind of the most tricky part. For this - download the firmware extracter, and compile it

cd /usr/src
mkdir fw-extract
cd fw-extract
wget http://www.elektrorevue.cz/clanky/05041/cxacru-fw-ng.tar.gz
tar xzf cxacru-fw-ng.tar.gz
make

You can also get a local copy of the firmware extractor attached to this FAQ, then download & extract the latest firmware

wget http://www.atlantis-land.com/firmware/1863_DriverWinMultiV099.085WAN.zip
unzip 1863_DriverWinMultiV099.085WAN.zip
mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/firmware
./cxacru-fw CnxEtU.sys /usr/local/lib/firmware/cxacru-fw.bin

as a backup option - check out the latest copy I found - find it in the download section of this site.
Alternatively - take the already extracted Firmware suitable for Linux linked to this site here.
After that - find out where your hotplug system looks for firmware. Mine checks under /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware - and that's where I'll copy the firmware.

cp cxacru-fw.bin /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware

This done reboot your system and check you have informations about your modem. The following message should show up during the boot process:

device class 'firmware': registering
bus usb: add driver cxacru
bound device '2-2:1.0' to driver 'cxacru'
usbcore: registered new driver cxacru
usb 1-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
cxacru 2-2:1.0: found firmware cxacru-fw.bin
cxacru 2-2:1.0: ADSL line: attemtping to activate
cxacru 2-2:1.0: ADSL line: down
cxacru 2-2:1.0: ADSL line: attemtping to activate
cxacru 2-2:1.0: ADSL line: channel analysis
cxacru 2-2:1.0: ADSL line: up (7168 kb/s down | 640 kb/s up)

Checking the proc-filesystem for the proper devices to exist - you should find:

cat /proc/net/atm/cxacru:0
ADSL USB MODEM (usb-0000:00:07.3-2)
MAC: 00:05:b4:12:57:68
AAL5: tx 38291 ( 0 err ), rx 58395 ( 0 err, 0 drop )
Line up

This shows - the modem is up and has a Link. Now - as I'm using PPPoE - I need to make sure the right modules are loaded for the br2684 module which enables a bridging connection with br2684ctl to run PPPoE over ATM.

modprobe br2684 

Make sure it is loaded at boot-time. On a Debian-System - add the line to the file /etc/modules

echo br2684 >> /etc/modules

Install the br2684ctl tools. Under debian:

apt-get install br2684ctl 

will do the trick. Find out what VPI/VCI your provider is using. In Germany - it's VPI=1 and VCI=32 at 1&1. To activate it - I wrote the following little script br2684_up.sh:

#!/bin/sh

PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin
export PATH

 # Build a little while loop - to check if the conexant modem
 # has a ADSL Line up
 count=0
 while [ $count -lt 40 ]
 do
   sync=`cat /proc/net/atm/cxacru:0 | grep 'Line up'`
   [ "$sync" = "Line up" ] && break
   sleep 1
   count=$((1+$count))
 done

if [ "$sync" = "Line up" ]
 then
  br2684ctl -b -c 0 -a 1.32
  sleep 3
  ifconfig nas0 172.16.2.6 netmask 255.255.255.248
fi

The while loop waits at least 40seconds until the cxacru-driver has synced to the telco - after that it will set up the bridge-interface to the ATM-device - which can be used by the pppd daemon.
Using the following file in /etc/ppp/peers/dsl-connection

noipdefault
defaultroute
user "UserName@domain.de"
noauth
updetach
usepeerdns
plugin rp-pppoe.so
nas0

hide-password
# Override any connect script that may have been set in /etc/ppp/options.
persist
mtu 1492

# RFC 2516, paragraph 7 mandates that the following options MUST NOT be
# requested and MUST be rejected if requested by the peer:
# Address-and-Control-Field-Compression (ACFC)
noaccomp
# Asynchronous-Control-Character-Map (ACCM)
default-asyncmap

I can call the connection using: pppd call dsl-connection
Note that you'll have to configure quite more stuff, especially to make the connection come up at boot time. On my debian system - I have copied the br2684_up.sh script to /etc/ppp, configured the ppp-connection using the pppoeconf package - and adapted the /etc/network/interface file to reflect the correct pppd-call. Make sure the br2684ctl is loaded at boot before the ppp is started.

auto dsl-connection
iface dsl-connection inet ppp
     provider dsl-connection
     pre-up /etc/ppp/br2684_up.sh
# please do not modify the following line
     pre-up /sbin/ifconfig nas0 up # line maintained by pppoeconf

 

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 19 August 2007 @ 00:01:54  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - CV860A / Lex Light, # Hits: 98893

Next  Kernel configuration - Lex CV860A 533MHz Epia V CPU 
Next  Adding USB Wireless Lan for Lex CV860A System 
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Question ? How can I flash the BIOS on the Epia 10000M mini-ITX system under DOS ?   [
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 Usually, you would use the Flitedeck utility from VIA. However - this one is deprecated, and won't work on the new plattform.
The problem with the Hush-PC is that it has no Floppy drive connected to it. If you try a USB-Floppy drive, it won't work either - the awdflash utility will deactivate all USB stuff _before_ reading the new BIOS in - thus cutting the tree it's sitting on.

Solution: Burn a Bootable CD-rom. for this -you need a Floppy-bootdisk image. With a Cd-Writing utility - copy all DOS-Files onto the CD, add the awdflash.exe utility and the new BIOS.bin file on it. Then go to the next step to add the bootable Image (Use the Floppy-Image) and you're done.
Boot from the CD - and once done - type in the following command:

awdflash.exe BIOS.bin /py/sn/cd/cp/tiny

and you should be done. Note that this should work with future and old versions of BIOS's.  

Entered by smurphy on Saturday, 18 August 2007 @ 23:57:58  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia M10000 / Hush, # Hits: 97341

Next  How can I flash the BIOS on the Epia 10000M mini-ITX system under Linux ? 
Next  BIOS Updates for Epia-Boards fix DMA-Issues 
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Question ? Adding USB Wireless Lan for Lex CV860A System   [
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 Get the newest snapshot from the CVS repository under: http://at76c503a.berlios.de/cvs.html
Unpack the archive in /usr/src/ - assuming you have already compiled the kernel version 2.6.12.4-EpiaV (Adapted in the Makefile of the kernel-source directory)

tar xzvf at76c503a-cvsroot.tar.gz
mv at76c503a CVS
cvs -d `pwd`/CVS co at76c503a
cd at76c503a
make KERNEL_VERSION=2.6.12.4-EpiaV
make KERNEL_VERSION=2.6.12.4-EpiaV install
/sbin/depmod -ae -F System.map  2.6.12.4-EpiaV

Note that you don' t need to specify all kernel-related version stuff when already running the kernel you compiled the driver against.
I have found out that there are several Firmware Versions available for this WLan Module - and I still don't know where I got the latest version - but in case someone looks for it - check it out firmware version 1.103.2 #175.
Please note that I tested it with USB device ID: 03eb:7605 only.

Note that some people have reported version 1.103.2 not to work on their hardware. In that case - use firmware version 1.101.0 #84. This version seems to work almost everywhere.  

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 19 August 2007 @ 00:01:53  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - CV860A / Lex Light, # Hits: 96759

Next  Kernel configuration - Lex CV860A 533MHz Epia V CPU 
Next  How do I configure the Conexant Accessrunner ADSL-Module for the CV860A Board ? 
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Question ? How do I need to configure the sensors stuff on the Lex CV860A ?   [
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 Actually - the lm_sensors 2.7.x package performs a quite good identification of the existing hardware. On my system - the following modules need to be loaded using a 2.6.12 kernel - in the /etc/sysconfig/lm_sensors:

MODULE_0=i2c-viapro
MODULE_1=i2c-isa
MODULE_3=eeprom
MODULE_4=via686a

Make sure you use the ISA Bus, as the SMBus uses the lm80 Chip/Module which provides only Junk data. Also - the /etc/sensors.conf file looks like this:

chip "via686a-*"
    label "1.5V" "CPU core"
    label "2.5V" "+2.5V"
    label "3.3V" "I/O"
    label "5.0V" "+5.0V"
    label "12V" "+12V"
    ignore fan1  #"CPU Fan"
    ignore fan2  #"P/S Fan"
    label temp1 "CPU Temp"
    label temp2 "SYS Temp"
    ignore temp3 #"SBr Temp"
    set temp1_hyst 50
    set temp1_over 55
    set temp2_hyst 55
    set temp2_over 60
    set temp3_hyst 60
    set temp3_over 65

That provides me decent data on the System. Note that the mini-ITX-Lex system is passive cooled - so no FANs. After creating the sensors.conf file - run "sensors -s" and you should be done. 

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 19 August 2007 @ 00:01:52  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - CV860A / Lex Light, # Hits: 96717

Attach   sensors_vt8231.conf  [ 64,986 bytes - text/plain ]
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Question ? I can't get a Screen-Resolution higher than 1024x768 using the X - FBDev ?   [
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 This results from the Fact that TV-Out has a maximum resolution of 1024x768 using the CLE266 Overlay Capabilities. So - in case you're using the Frame-Buffer device to run X-Windows, make sure in the BIOS you deactivate the TV Out in the CMOS-Setup, Advanced Chipset Features/Select Display Device - just use CRT. 

Entered by smurphy on Saturday, 18 August 2007 @ 23:57:58  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia M10000 / Hush, # Hits: 96477
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Question ? Powersaving features on the Lex 860A with kernel 2.6.x ?   [
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 The Lex 860A EPIA 5000 board uses the 533MHz C3 CPU. By loading the longhaul module - you can throttle the CPU. Note that it became stable with kernel 2.6.11.11 only on my system.
So - all you need to do is enable the longhaul by loading the longhaul module:
modprobe longhaul
Check using the dmesg command to see if it loaded correctly.
If this works - make sure the longhaul module gets loaded at every boot. For this - just add "longhaul" and "cpufreq_powersave" into the /etc/modules file.
Using the longhaul stuff - make sure you use under a 2.6.12.4 kernel-module (as configured in config-2.6.12.4) with the userspace-governor eabled by default - then change to:

# cd /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq
cpufreq # ls
affected_cpus
scaling_available_frequencies
scaling_governor
cpuinfo_cur_freq
scaling_available_governors
scaling_max_freq
cpuinfo_max_freq
scaling_cur_freq
scaling_min_freq
cpuinfo_min_freq
scaling_driver
scaling_setspeed
cpufreq # modprobe cpufreq_powersave
cpufreq # cat scaling_available_governors
powersave userspace
echo powersave > scaling_governor
cpufreq # cat scaling_cur_freq
399000

That's it ...  

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 19 August 2007 @ 00:01:52  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - CV860A / Lex Light, # Hits: 96448
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Question ? Why is the Display quality so bad ?   [
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 Actually - what you see is the noise of many things going on on your system - it mostly happens on Harddisk Accesses, Sound-card playing music, Strong Network-Transfers etc.

  • It has something to do with the Powerunit/Mass connection and the connection between the Screen and the Onboard graphic card
  • Once you make sure the Case and the Mass of your Board is connected to the Generall Mass (in Germany it's called "Erdung"), this noise apparitions go away on your Screen
  • It can also have something to do with the Powerunit not beeing strong enough - so you can try out a stronger Powerunit to see if it solves the problem

 

Entered by smurphy on Saturday, 18 August 2007 @ 23:57:58  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia M10000 / Hush, # Hits: 96398
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Question ? Crackling sound using the M10000 Nemiah under Mandrake 9.x/10.x ?   [
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 This is most probably due to the fact that you're using the wrong Sampling speed. It avered to work correctly when using the alsa-Drivers 0.9.x with x &gt; 4 and 1.0.x with x &lt; 2- but you'll have to recompile these. Under Mandrake however - these will only compile if you deactivate the verbose-printk stuff. In the Alsa-Driver directory, compile it using:

./configure --disable-verbose-printk && make && make install

or you'll get unresolved dependencies. Once this is done, make sure the alsa drivers are loaded using dxs_support=3. In the /etc/modules.conf - this will look like:

# Sound Stuff
above snd-via82xx snd-pcm-oss
alias sound-slot-0 snd-via82xx
options snd-via82xx dxs_support=3

And it should work :) 

Entered by smurphy on Saturday, 18 August 2007 @ 23:57:58  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia M10000 / Hush, # Hits: 96395

Attach   etc-modules.d-alsa.txt  [ 1,251 bytes - text/plain ]
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Question ? Installing mandrake 9.1 on the Lex CV860A System ?   [
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 First of all - you need to realize that the CV860A has a Via C3 Ezra CPU which is a 486 Based CPU, with some Pentium extension. So most things will work.
The Installation will make no problems - however - as soon as you reboot the System - it will crash badly - especially if you have a USB Wireless Lancard using the Amtel Chipset (this was my case).
I found out - that the usb subsystem was the cause of the problems - so deactivating it on boot appending: nousb to the lilo-command line - did the trick. What was required to do - was to deactivate the usb-uhci driver loading if the modules for the Wireless Interface was to be loaded (Which was the cause of the problem) and use the uhci module. Do this with changing the probeall USB line in the etc/modules.conf file to:

# Wireless Lan stuff
probeall usb-interface uhci
post-install usbvnetr /bin/fastvnet.sh

This will fix the Crash. 

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 19 August 2007 @ 00:01:52  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - CV860A / Lex Light, # Hits: 96372
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Question ? What does the Lex Light CV860A look like ?   [
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 Here' a picture downloaded from the linitx-page


You can get it a http://www.linitx.com
This little box is a perfect home-server for Internet access, can also be used as a very nice firewall.
Technical details:

 Dimensions: 170x50x225mm
 VIA 533 MHz cpu - No Fan!
 CV860A Motherboard
 512MBYtes 168 pin DIMM SDRAM
 2.5inch IDE 40GBytes
 Onboard Compact Flash adaptor (unused)
 Onboard DiskOnChip socket
 3 10/100 Realtek 8139 LAN ports
 2 rear USB ports
 1 front USB port
 Mouse, Keyboard, VGA,2 Serial, Parallel sockets
 Onboard power supply
 External 12v power brick

 

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 19 August 2007 @ 00:01:53  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - CV860A / Lex Light, # Hits: 96336

Attach   Lex Light CV860A Case  [ 7,196 bytes - image/jpeg ]
Attach   Lex Light CV860A Rear  [ 49,589 bytes - image/jpeg ]

Next  Lex CV860A / Epia 5000 system instability 
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Question ? lm_sensors doesn't find the correct sensor chip under under Mandrake 9.1 ?   [
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 Mandrake has the correct lm_sensors version in - however - the sensors_detect perl-script needs to be updated to find the correct chip. You can get that script here:
http://www2.lm-sensors.nu/~lm78/cvs/lm_sensors2/prog/detect/sensors-detect
A local copy is attached to this FAQ entry.
Once run - you need to make sure that the following modules are loaded through /etc/sysconfig/lm_sensors

MODULE_0=i2c-viapro
MODULE_1=i2c-isa
MODULE_2=eeprom
MODULE_3=vt1211

After that - adapt the /etc/sensors.conf file - Check mine in the related files section of this FAQ. Note that the Mini-ITC Nemiah M10000 seem to have only one temperature sensor. All others give back Junk.
Check the entire setup by starting it through /etc/rc.d/init.d/lm_sensors start After that - a sensors output should provide something like this:

eeprom-i2c-0-50
Adapter: SMBus Via Pro adapter at 0500
Algorithm: Non-I2C SMBus adapter
Memory type:            DDR SDRAM DIMM SPD
Memory size (MB):       512

vt1211-isa-6000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Algorithm: ISA algorithm
VCore1:    +2.31 V  (min =  +2.24 V, max =  +2.74 V)
+5V:       +4.71 V  (min =  +4.48 V, max =  +5.49 V)
+12V:     +11.78 V  (min = +10.77 V, max = +13.15 V)
+3.3V:     +3.28 V  (min =  +3.13 V, max =  +3.45 V)
Proc Temp: +56.5C  (limit =  +65C, hysteresis =  +60C)

 

Entered by smurphy on Saturday, 18 August 2007 @ 23:57:58  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia M10000 / Hush, # Hits: 96333

Attach   sensors.conf  [ 11,464 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   sensors-detect  [ 116,896 bytes - application/x-perl ]
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Question ? Building the 2.6 kernel for the Epia M10000 Board with Nemiah CPU   [
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 The 2.6.2 kernel works well on the EPIA boards, but the patch is not as well developed as the 2.4 patch. First, start with a recent distribution - I used Fedora core 1. Download the 2.6.2 kernel from kernel.org. Next, download the 2.6.1 kernel patch. Don't worry - the 2.6.1 patch works with the 2.6.2 kernel source but we will have to create a symlink so that the patch finds the source tree. Next, extract and patch the kernel:

bash$ tar -xjf linux-2.6.2.tar.bz2
bash$ cd linux-2.6.2
bash$ gunzip -c ../via-v4l-1.4a-drm.patch.gz | patch -p1

If you have a more recent kernel - as the 2.6.11.5 - you don' t need to patch it - as all required patches are in the main kernel stream.
Next we have to configure the kernel. If you want, you can download this stripped down config file. Copy it to linux-2.6.2/.config and execute the make xconfig. The example config file is designed for a Nehemiah processor. If you are using an earlier processor then you must change the CPU type to C3. Then save and build.

bash$ make xconfig
bash$ make bzImage
bash$ make modules
bash$ su
Password:
bash# make modules_install
bash# make install

You should know how to modify your boot configuration to boot from the new kernel. Note that I have not been able to use the VESA framebuffer with the 2.6.2 kernel - the virtual terminals are blank. So boot in normal 80x25 mode. You will load the drivers manually (or edit your init scripts):

bash# /sbin/modprobe uhci-hcd
bash# /sbin/modprobe via82cxxx_audio
bash# /sbin/modprobe hid
bash# /sbin/modprobe agpgart
bash# /sbin/modprobe via_agp
bash# /sbin/modprobe via_v4l_drv
bash# /sbin/modprobe via

Also, you may need to edit your /etc/modules.conf file. The usb module has changed names, so you should have something like this:

alias usb-controller uhci-hcd
alias usb-controller1 uhci-hcd

 

Entered by smurphy on Saturday, 18 August 2007 @ 23:57:58  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia M10000 / Hush, # Hits: 96075

Attach   config-2.6.2  [ 26,939 bytes - application/octet-stream ]
Attach   config-2.6.11-epiam-r5  [ 34,360 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   Epia-M10000_kernel_config_2.6.x.txt  [ 26,211 bytes - text/plain ]
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Question ? Lex CV860A / Epia 5000 system instability   [
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 The symptoms are always the same:

  • HD LED steadily one
  • HD harddrive not accessible (connected on IDE 2)
  • rest of system keeps running (network devices ok, graphics & sound ok)

The following error-message will usually occure:

hdc: DMA timeout error
hdc: dma timeout error: status=0xd0 { Busy }
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hdc: DMA disabled
ide1: reset: success
hdc: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
ide: failed opcode was: 0xb0

This is mostly due to the harddisk overheating. Having a Lex-System at home - the harddisk is mounted over a chip that gets rather hot - circled in red in the following Picture:

Sometimes the system won' t recover from such thing - thus hanging and not beeing able to actually recover to access-mode on the disk. If you're not on site to actually get that issue fixed on hot days - set the CPU speed to 400MHz, FSB to 66MHz and make sure the harddrive does not get too hot.
It seems - the smart-capability of the HD did deactivate the Harddisk to protect it from damage - due to overheating.
Here is what I run to actually stabilise it:

service smartd stop
chkconfig --del smartd
smartctl --smart=off --offlineauto=off --saveauto=on /dev/hdc
hdparm -d1 -Xudma2 /dev/hda


Another thing that was found on the Web - under http://www.directron.com/faqviaas.html

I am having trouble with a system using a VIA chipset including a 686b southbridge and a Creative Sound Blaster Live card.

When the 686b southbridge was first released, motherboard manufacturers and VIA discovered a problem when trying to transfer files between the primary and the secondary IDE channels on motherboards using ultra-DMA, when a Sound Blaster Live was plugged in and drivers activated. This issue was caused because too much noise is transferred across the PCI bus by the Sound Blaster Live driver set. In an attempt to fix this issue, some motherboard manufacturers modified their BIOS. In some instances, these modifications to the BIOS caused a data corruption error even when not using a Sound Blaster Live. VIA released a patch which resolves this issue, which is incoroporated in the 4in1 drivers from the 4.31 version onwards. Motherboard manufacturers were advised to change the modifications made to thier BIOS to elimate the data corruption issue. If you are experiencing data corruption or lock up when transferring files between two IDE drives:

  • Make sure you have the latest BIOS from your motherboard manufacturer
  • Make sure you have the latest 4in1 drivers
  • Make sure when you set up your system that you install the 4in1 drivers both before and after you install the SBL to make sure that the drivers see your SBL and install the correct patch. The patch will only install if the SBL is installed.

Discussions about these issues can be found:
a. Via-Arena
b. Symaptico Epia Forum
c. Tryphon
d. Kernel Maillinglist  

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 19 August 2007 @ 00:01:53  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - CV860A / Lex Light, # Hits: 96048

Attach    CV860A Lex Mini-ITX Board  [ 52,836 bytes - image/jpeg ]

Next  What does the Lex Light CV860A look like ? 
Next  BIOS Updates for Epia-Boards fix DMA-Issues 
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Question ? Kernel configuration - Lex CV860A 533MHz Epia V CPU   [
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 These kernel-configurations are using the plain unpatched kernels as found on kernel.org.
The system these are running on - is a Lex 860A Epia 5000 V.
Please note that if you have the Wireless modules - you need to compile the modules externally. Check the Related Faq Link at the bottom of this FAQ. 

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 19 August 2007 @ 00:01:53  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - CV860A / Lex Light, # Hits: 95725

Attach   config-2.6.12.4  [ 32,479 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   config-2.6.11.11-12  [ 31,935 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   config-2.4.29-epia  [ 24,723 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   config-2.6.11-5-C3-EpiaV  [ 32,511 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   config_2.6.12-1-C3-EpiaV  [ 33,773 bytes - text/plain ]

Next  Adding USB Wireless Lan for Lex CV860A System 
Next  How do I configure the Conexant Accessrunner ADSL-Module for the CV860A Board ? 
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Question ? Any more informations on the CV860A Board ?   [
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]

 VIA VT8601A & VT82C686B EDEN on board CPU



Check the Manufacturer homepage details CV860A Board Specs  

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 19 August 2007 @ 00:01:53  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - CV860A / Lex Light, # Hits: 95701

Attach    CV860A Board picture  [ 52,986 bytes - image/jpeg ]
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Question ? Any more informations on the Epia M10000 board ?   [
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 Check out complete details on the VIA webpage

In the download section you can also find:
* Epia M10000 Operating Guidelines
* Epia M10000 User's Manual
 

Entered by smurphy on Saturday, 18 August 2007 @ 23:57:59  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia M10000 / Hush, # Hits: 95371

Attach   Epia M Board  [ 263,203 bytes - image/jpeg ]
Attach   Epia M Board - Low res.  [ 37,601 bytes - image/jpeg ]
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Question ? Specific xorg.conf files for CLE266 Chip ?   [
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 For the X-Windows System xorg-6.8.2 - check out the following files. Plesae note - that I also have a MGA 450 PCI board in my system - for Dual-Screen - and sometimes I use the DVI-Port - as the signals the Onboard-chip provides are quite bad. This is why I also provide some xorg.configs for that board - or comabination of both.

Please adapt your Kezboard configurations and eventually also the mouse configs. Using a US-Keyboard here, and a Logitech MX700 Wiireless mouse 

Entered by smurphy on Saturday, 18 August 2007 @ 23:57:58  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia M10000 / Hush, # Hits: 95278

Attach   xorg.conf  [ 5,745 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   xorg.conf.mga450  [ 2,165 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   xorg.conf_mga_xinerama  [ 2,992 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   xorg.cle266  [ 6,705 bytes - application/octet-stream ]
Attach   xorg.conf_cle266_mga  [ 3,458 bytes - application/octet-stream ]
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Question ? My Nemiah M10000 always crashes when rebooting SUSE 9.3 after installation ?   [
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 This is a known problem of the longhaul module on the SUSE system kernel. Make SUSE can not load the longhaul module - and you're safe.

For this - boot into the single-user mode - at the lilo-prompt - add the option:

init 1

Edit the file /etc/modules.conf or /etc/modprobe.conf and make sure the following line is in there:

 alias longhaul off 

If you want to remove the module completely - go to the /lib/modules directory - and issue the following command:

find . -name "longhaul*"

This will tell you where the longhaul module is located. Move it to a different location outside the kernel-version tree, or delete it - then you should be done. Reboot and enjoy...  

Entered by smurphy on Saturday, 18 August 2007 @ 23:57:58  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia M10000 / Hush, # Hits: 94969
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Question ? What does the Hush mini-ITX PC look like ?   [
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 it looks really cool. Check out details at Hush Technologies. Please note that the version with M10000 Epia Board is not manufactured any more.  

Entered by smurphy on Saturday, 18 August 2007 @ 23:57:59  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia M10000 / Hush, # Hits: 94794

Attach   Hush PC Picture  [ 9,274 bytes - image/jpeg ]
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Question ? Why use via_agp.o ? via.o ?   [
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 These drivers are for different use

  • via_agp is needed to get agp working
  • via is needed to get drm working.

If only via is loaded, drm will work, but will fail to acquire AGP, and instead use only the PCI path which for the driver you are trying to use is available only for root since it tries to access registers not even available for an insecure dri client. 

Entered by smurphy on Saturday, 18 August 2007 @ 23:57:58  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia M10000 / Hush, # Hits: 94728
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Question ? How do I update the Bios on the Epia SP8000E Board ?   [
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 Usually, you would use the Flitedeck utility from VIA. However - this one is deprecated, and won't work on the new plattforms.
You can use a USB-Floppy drive now. Seems the BIOS has been improved - compared to the one on the M10000. Make sure the Write-Protection is removed: remove the jumper WP accordingly for the time to flash the BIOS.

Create a bootable dos-Disk - using Caldera-DOS 6.x here - put all required files on it. You can find some in www.bootdisk.com. Make sure you have a new version of the flash-tool (using version 829 here).
Boot from the floppy - and once done - type in the following command:

awfl829.exe BIOS.bin /py/sn/cd/cp

and you should be done. Note that this should work with future and old versions of BIOS's. Do not use the option /tiny on that one. Won't work.  

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 17 August 2005 @ 00:19:12  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia SP8000E, # Hits: 92503

Attach   Epia SP8000E Board layout  [ 66,291 bytes - image/png ]

Next  BIOS Updates for Epia-Boards fix DMA-Issues 
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Question ? How do I configure the sensors stuff ?   [
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 In the module-configuration file for lm_sensors - e.g. under Mandrake 10.1 /etc/sysconfig/lm_sensors
Gentoo /etc/conf.d/lm_sensors
make sure the following modules are configured to be loaded. You'll require lm_sensors-2.9.1 at least for the display of sensor informations to be correct.

MODULE_0=i2c-viapro
MODULE_1=i2c-isa
MODULE_2=eeprom
MODULE_3=vt1211

The /etc/sensors.conf file has to be as in the attached sensors.conf file.  

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 02 September 2005 @ 23:28:10  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia SP8000E, # Hits: 91325

Attach   sensors.conf  [ 6,829 bytes - plain/text ]
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Question ? Any more informations about the Epia SP8000E Board ?   [
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  Check out the manufacturer homepage for technical details: Via Homepage

Some more guides can be found in the download section
* Epia SP8000E Operating Guidelines
* Epia SP8000E User Guide 

Entered by smurphy on Tuesday, 30 August 2005 @ 19:43:50  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia SP8000E, # Hits: 91297
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Question ? How does CPU Frequency scaling, e.g. powersaving work ?   [
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 The Epia SP8000E uses a 800MHz Nemiah core CPU. By loading the longhaul module - you can throttle the CPU (Tested with 2.6.11.6). Please note that there are many patches to the cpufrequency control - and many are unstable. If your System locks-Hard - you have a bad implementation :)
So - all you need to do is enable the cpu frequency scaling by loading the longhaul module and some governors:

 modprobe longhaul
 modprobe cpufreq_powersave

Check using the dmesg command to see if it loaded correctly.
If this works - make sure the longhaul module gets loaded at every boot. For this - just add longhaul and cpufreq_powersave into the /etc/modprobe.preload file.
Using longhaul - make sure your kernel was configured with the userspace-governor enabled by default - then change to:

root # cd /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/
cpufreq # ls 
affected_ cpuinfo_cur_freq
cpuinfo_max_freq
cpuinfo_min_freq
scaling_available_frequencies
scaling_available_governors
scaling_cur_freq
scaling_driver
scaling_governor
scaling_max_freq
scaling_min_freq
scaling_setspeed
cpufreq # cat scaling_cur_freq
798000
cpufreq # cat scaling_available_frequencies
532000 598000 731000 798000 665000
cpufreq # echo 532000 > scaling_setspeed
cpufreq # cat scaling_cur_freq
532000

With the userspace governor activated

cpufreq # cat scaling_available_governors
userspace

The System will set the speed up to 800MHz in this special case - if required - and when idle again - go down with the frequency. In short - it will dynamically monitor the system load and regulate the CPU Frequency accordingly. If you want to stick the system into powersave mode - load the cpufreq_powersave.ko module

cpufreq # modprobe cpufreq_powersave
cpufreq # cat scaling_available_governors
powersave userspace
echo powersave > scaling_governor

This will make the CPU-Frequency sticky at the lowest speed your CPU can run at - and hopefully lower the overall system power consumption and heat dissipation This is what I have added to the system's /etc/rc.local file on my server - so it gets activated at every boot.

sleep 60
echo powersave > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

For those having a RedHat based system - you can use the following startup-script cpufreq.tar.gz. 2 Files are in there:

/etc/init.d/cpufreq
/etc/sysconfig/cpufreq

Edit the /etc/sysconfig/cpufreq and set your preferences - then:

init.d # ./cpufreq status
CPU Frequency Scaling deactivated !
stargate init.d # ./cpufreq start
Loading modules: longhaul, cpufreq_powersave
Setting gowernor to: powersave
Actual powerstatus: longhaul(powersave) @ 399000KHz

If this works - register it to the underlaying system issuing:

chkconfig --add cpufreq
chkconfig --list cpufreq
cpufreq         0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

This will start the script at every startup.
Note that you can start the exact order by adapting the chkconfig-line in the init.d/cpufreq script itself. It is set to be started after udev and iptables startup.

# chkconfig: 2345 05 90

If chkconfig does not exist on your system - you can of course create symlinks - as back in old times. 

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 02 September 2005 @ 23:33:37  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia SP8000E, # Hits: 91212

Attach   cpufreq.tar.gz  [ 1,014 bytes - application/x-gzip ]
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Question ? Xorg configuration files for Epia SP8000E Board CN400 Chipset ?   [
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 Check the following files:

  • Epios Distribution

    • For Epios System - Via own Drivers xorg.conf

 

Entered by smurphy on Thursday, 18 August 2005 @ 20:05:20  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia SP8000E, # Hits: 91177

Attach   xorg.conf.pm800  [ 4,017 bytes - application/octet-stream ]
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Question ? Epia SP8000E Board Layout   [
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 Here it is:  

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 19 August 2005 @ 21:28:37  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia SP8000E, # Hits: 91161

Attach   Epia SP8000E Board Layout  [ 70,327 bytes - image/jpeg ]
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Question ? Why an Epia SP8000E Board ?   [
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 The main reason is simple. If you use an old PC laying around - you would require up to 100W Power in average - makes 2.4KWh per day power to use.
An Epia SP8000E System, with 2x2.5" HD Drives uses ~28W Power in full utilization mode - makes approx 672Wh in a day - ~3 Times less money to pay ... Note than in IDLE mode - I have a constant 18W = 432Wh power consumption.

However - other features come in I based my choice on: USB 2.0, Firewire, Padlock-capability (e.g. AES encryption engine), Passive cooling, S-ATA connectors and a well supported cpufrequency-scaling. Check out the Epia Power Simulator for computing the powerconsumption of a system you might want to set up.  

Entered by smurphy on Monday, 19 September 2005 @ 23:19:22  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia SP8000E, # Hits: 91004

Attach   Epia SP8000E Board  [ 20,662 bytes - image/jpeg ]
Attach   Epia SP8000E Board 2  [ 123,188 bytes - image/jpeg ]
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Question ? VIA CN400 Chipset Overview   [
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 The VIA CN400 Chipset is designed to enable high quality digital video-streaming and DVD Playback in fanless operations mode.

Features are a Embedded UniChrome PRO 2D/3D Mpege-2 Decoder/MPEG-4 Accelerator, DDR400 support, motion compensation and duo-view support. Also - USB 2.0, Serial-ATA, 10/100 MBIt LAN and ATA133/100 IDE.

The Overall Layout looks like this:
 

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 02 September 2005 @ 21:12:12  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia SP8000E, # Hits: 90908

Attach   CN400 Chipset Overview  [ 49,201 bytes - image/jpeg ]
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Question ? Building the 2.6 kernel for the Epia SP8000E Board with Nemiah CPU   [
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 The very standard kernel from kernel.org, adding the vt1211-patch - as stated in the related links - and use the attached config.

For a Mandrake 10.1/10.2 System

  • config_2.6.13.EpiaN
    config_2.6.13.2.EpiaN scsi and raid compiled in to get 2 S-ATA Drives running. Note that the longhaul module causes the system to crash, and using 2 SATA disks in mirror mode - makes it somewhat unstable. The VT8237 Chip seems to not like high load on the bus.
  • config_2.6.11.5-epiaN scsi and raid compiled into the kernel - as 2 S-ATA Drives running on it. No initrd required to boot. This kernel is much more stable when using the cfq scheduler then any other kernel. Under heavy traffic & High load though - crashes can still occure.

 

Entered by smurphy on Monday, 26 September 2005 @ 20:01:06  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia SP8000E, # Hits: 90859

Attach   config-2.6.13-EpiaN  [ 35,513 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   config-2.6.11.5-epiaN  [ 33,398 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   config-2.6.13.2-EpiaN  [ 35,458 bytes - text/plain ]

Next  The Vt1211 sensors-module driver does not work under kernel 2.6.13 ? 
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Question ? Does the SP8000E run fanless in the Travla Case C138?   [
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 I would have loved someone to answer me that question before I bought that case. The Short answer is: No
The case is nice - though the CPU temperature is going up to 70/80C. That might be OK for the CPU and motherboard - however - we have to take into account the other components in the system. The Harddisk or CDRom Drives will suffer from it. Especially harddisks start to fail when the temperature is over 60C - so at least the harddrive will require a FAN to operate.

Solution: Instead of the location for the 2.5" harddrive - put a 50mm FAN on the side which blows the air out of the case - you'll have to make a big hole on the side though. This keeps the System temperature below 45C which is sustainable for all the hardware inside.  

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 21 September 2005 @ 23:31:28  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia SP8000E, # Hits: 90669
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Question ? Does the Epia SP8000E run fanless ?   [
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 The simple answer is: Yes

Using the Serener GD-L01 Case - this is definitly not an issue. It is passively cooled using Heatpipe technolgy, and keeps the system warm only. Not hot.

 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 28 January 2009 @ 14:38:45  
Linux on VIA Epia Hardware - Epia SP8000E, # Hits: 82957

Attach   GD-L01 Case  [ 13,242 bytes - image/jpeg ]
Attach   GD-L01 inside view  [ 30,951 bytes - image/jpeg ]
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Question ? Why do I not see the full 4GB Ram on my system ?   [
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 This has mainly to do with the number of memory address lanes available to the system, and how the OS uses and addresses the memory itself. But first off - if you have 4GiBytes of Memory in your system, chances are you will see only 3.25GiBytes available.

This is mainly due to the fact, that all PCI/PCI-eX Devices allocate some memory for mapped IO Calls / DMA accesses, and to be able to access this reserved memory in a linear way, you need to be able to talk to these in 32 bit mode - thus the 4GiBytes limit. Note that the missing memory has been mapped by the physical extension cards starting from the upper 4GiByte limit downwards. Means the more memory a card allocates and the more extension cards you have, the more memory will be missing.

Even on 64Bit CPU/OS's combinations you may see this beheavior. Many extension cards still use 32Bit registers. These can only address the first 4GiByte linearly, thus allocate memory from 4GiByte on downwards - recreating the problems due to backwards compatibility. 

Entered by smurphy on Thursday, 11 October 2007 @ 11:06:29  
META FAQ - META Questions, # Hits: 60470
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Question ? mp3 streamer - Discontinued   [
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 The mp3streamer is a very old code and was meant to be used internally (LAN) only. As it has seen no code submission over 10 years, the code has been removed from any system. Please find an alternative on the Internet... There are many.
Please remove any link you may have found. 

Entered by admin on Wednesday, 01 April 2015 @ 12:38:11  
META FAQ - PHP Phobos, # Hits: 37315
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Question ? 3dpixmaps - discontinued   [
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 The 3dpixmaps icon collection was put together back in 1998 to use on the Desktop of the Technical University in Berlin. It was later used by the SuSe distribution in conjunction with the fvwm Window Manager.
As that is a very long time, and the internet has developed quite many new icon-sets, this package can now retire.
Please remove any links you may find.  

Entered by admin on Wednesday, 01 April 2015 @ 13:00:20  
META FAQ - PHP Phobos, # Hits: 37278
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Question ? Is there a way to migrate playcount data from amarok to xbmc ?   [
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 It is indeed possible to do this. However - the following will be required:

  • XBMC must use the MySQL database setup
  • Amarok must use the same Mysql DB xbmc is using
  • the xbmc user has SELECT rights to the amarokdb.
  • On the amarokdb - we have to crate a new view
  • You are using the same media repository on both sides, means both amarok and xbmc will read the mp3 tags out of the same files.

If these requirements are met - migrating the data over from Amarok to xbmc is possible.

Note - the following examples are working on Amarok 2.7.0 and xbmc 12 (Frodo).
Modifications to be done on the XBMC DB. Here MyMusic32.

# View showing the real data
CREATE ALGORITHM=UNDEFINED VIEW `XTAPCount` AS select `song`.`idSong` AS 
`Xid`,`song`.`strTitle` AS `XSTitle`,`album`.`strArtists` AS 
`XARTName`,`album`.`strAlbum` AS `XALBName`,`song`.`iTimesPlayed` AS 
`XPlaycount` from (`song` join `album`) where (`song`.`idAlbum` = 
`album`.`idAlbum`);

We will need an intermediate table to store the local and remote playcounts.

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `XTAPCount_last` (
  `LXid` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `LXSTitle` varchar(512) NOT NULL,
  `LXARTName` varchar(512) NOT NULL,
  `LXALBName` varchar(512) NOT NULL,
  `LXPlaycount` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `LXpcdiff` int(11) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`LXid`),
  KEY `LXSTitle` (`LXSTitle`(333)),
  KEY `LXARTName` (`LXARTName`(333)),
  KEY `LXALBName` (`LXALBName`(333))
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COMMENT='Table to keep the playcount differences.';

The next view will actually show the differences in playcounts.

# View to show the differences in playcounts.
CREATE OR REPLACE 
ALGORITHM = UNDEFINED
VIEW `XTAPCount_last_diff` AS 
SELECT Xid, XSTitle, XARTName, XALBName, XPlaycount, LXPlaycount, (
XPlaycount - LXPlaycount
) AS XDiff
FROM XTAPCount_last, XTAPCount
WHERE Xid = LXid
AND (
XPlaycount NOT LXPlaycount
);

Let's insert the data for the first time. We take the values as they are

insert INTO XTAPCount_last(LXid, LXSTitle, LXARTName, LXALBName, LXPlaycount )
 SELECT Xid,XSTitle,XARTName,XALBName,XPlaycount from XTAPCount;

Update the LXPlaycount (This is the initial run).

UPDATE XTAPCount_last SET LXpcdiff=LXPlaycount;

Let's prepare the same for the Amarok side.

# View showing the real data
CREATE ALGORITHM=UNDEFINED VIEW `ATAPCount` AS select distinct `tracks`.`id` 
AS `Aid`,`tracks`.`title` AS `ASTitle`,`artists`.`name` AS 
`AARTName`,`albums`.`name` AS `AALBName`,`statistics`.`playcount` AS 
`APlaycount` from (((`tracks` join `statistics`) join `artists`) join `albums`) 
where ((`tracks`.`id` = `statistics`.`id`) and (`artists`.`id` = 
`tracks`.`artist`) and (`tracks`.`album` = `albums`.`id`)) order by 
`statistics`.`playcount` desc;

Intermediate Table - where we will store local and remote (here) XBMC Playcount.

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `ATAPCount_last` (
  `LAid` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `LASTitle` varchar(512) COLLATE utf8_bin NOT NULL COMMENT 'Song Title',
  `LAARTName` varchar(512) COLLATE utf8_bin NOT NULL COMMENT 'Artist name',
  `LAABName` varchar(512) COLLATE utf8_bin NOT NULL COMMENT 'Artist Name',
  `LAPlaycount` int(11) NOT NULL COMMENT 'Playcount',
  `LApcdiff` int(11) NOT NULL COMMENT 'Playcount difference to last time',
  PRIMARY KEY (`LAid`),
  KEY `LASTitle` (`LASTitle`(333)),
  KEY `LAARTName` (`LAARTName`(333)),
  KEY `LAABName` (`LAABName`(333))
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_bin COMMENT='Table containing last play state.';

LAst but not least, the View to show the differences in playcounts.

CREATE OR REPLACE 
ALGORITHM = UNDEFINED
VIEW `ATAPCount_last_diff` AS 
SELECT Aid, ASTitle, AARTName, AALBName, APlaycount, LAPlaycount, (
APlaycount - LAPlaycount
) AS ADiff
FROM ATAPCount_last, ATAPCount
WHERE Aid = LAid
AND (
APlaycount  LAPlaycount
);

Make the Initial data dump

INSERT INTO ATAPCount_last(LAid, LASTitle, LAARTName, LAABName, LAplaycount ) 
SELECT Aid,ASTitle,AARTName,AALBName,APlaycount from ATAPCount;

And put the playcount into the temporary Field LApcdiff (Amarok DB only here).

UPDATE ATAPCount_last SET LApcdiff=LAPlaycount;

Now comes the Sync Process. Depending on the number of lines you have in there, it may take some time. With 12K Songs - it takes around 12 Minutes for my DB's to sync.
Sync the Data Amarok -> XBMC

UPDATE MyMusic32.XTAPCount,ATAPCount_last_diff SET 
MyMusic32.XTAPCount.XPlaycount=(MyMusic32.XTAPCount.XPlaycount + 
ATAPCount_last_diff.ADiff) WHERE ASTitle=XSTitle AND AARTName=XARTName AND 
AALBName=XALBName and ADIff > 0;

Once this is done - set the current state with:

UPDATE ATAPCount_last,ATAPCount set LAPlaycount=Aplaycount WHERE LAid=Aid;

Put the playcount into the temporary Field LApcdiff (Amarok DB only here).

UPDATE ATAPCount_last SET LApcdiff=LAPlaycount;

Sync the Data XBMC -> Amarok

UPDATE amarokdb.ATAPCount, XATAPCount_last_diff SET 
amarokdb.ATAPCount.APlaycount=(amarokdb.ATAPCount.APlaycount + 
XATAPCount_last_diff.XDiff) WHERE ASTitle=XSTitle AND AARTName=XARTName AND 
AALBName=XALBName and XDiff > 0;

You're done. 

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 10 March 2013 @ 16:35:17  
Nothing Specific - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 65140
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Question ? What is the Gnu Public Licence   [
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  The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software - to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.
Note that there are 2 Version of the GPL - V2 and v3 that are used at the moment.
Check the Full Paper in the related Files Section. 

Entered by smurphy on Saturday, 18 August 2007 @ 22:56:22  
Nothing Specific - META Questions, # Hits: 63021

Attach   GPL_V2.txt  [ 15,131 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   GPL_V3.txt  [ 35,148 bytes - text/plain ]
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Question ? What does the name SOLSYS stand for ?   [
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 As I searched for a domain name - I didn't find anything suitable for stargate (Server system). Everything was used already, but the abbreviation for the Solar System (solsys) did still exist. 

Entered by smurphy on Sunday, 17 June 2001 @ 02:00:32  
Nothing Specific - META Questions, # Hits: 62937
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Question ? What is a Kibit ? Or why does my OS show me less space than the manufacturer of the Disk ?   [
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 Of course everyone knows that 1 Kilobyte equals to 1.024 bytes. Well - this is wrong !

A kibibit (a contraction of kilo binary digit) is a unit of information or computer storage, abbreviated Kibit, or sometimes Kib. (Note that the abbreviation is capitalized, while kbit is not.)

1 kibibit = 210 bits = 1,024 bits
1 kibibit = 27 bytes = 128 bytes

The kibibit is closely related to the kilobit, which can either be a synonym for kibibit, or refer to 103 bits = 1,000 bits, depending on context.
The National Institute of Science and Technologies notes that

it is important to recognize that the new prefixes for binary multiples are not part of the International System of Units (SI), the modern metric system.

It should also be noted that they are not in general use among professional software and electrical engineers, who generally use decimal prefixes when referring to binary quantities.

In short - we need to make the difference between the Metric Prefix system - this one handles the comon Kilo naming convention, and the Binary prefix systems - which is the real definition for binary formats as found on harddisks.

The following table shows you the comon namings and sizes

Metric (Symbol)Std. SI Binary (Symbol)Value
kilobit (kb) 103 bit kibibit (Kibit) 210 bit
megabit (Mb) 106 bit mebibit (Mibit) 220 bit
gigabit (Gb) 109 bit gibibit (Gibit) 230 bit
terabit (Tb) 1012 bit tebibit (Tibit) 240 bit
petabit (Pb) 1015 bit pebibit (Pibit) 250 bit
exabit (Eb) 1018 bit exbibit (Eibit) 260 bit
zettabit (Zb) 1021 bit zebibit (Zibit) 270 bit
yottabit (Yb) 1024 bit yobibit (Yibit) 280 bit

BTW - same also applies to the Byte fraction

Metric (Symbol)Std. SI Binary (Symbol)Value
kilobyte (kb) 103 byte kibibyte (Kibyte) 210 byte
megabyte (Mb) 106 byte mebibyte (Mibyte) 220 byte
gigabyte (Gb) 109 byte gibibyte (Gibyte) 230 byte
terabyte (Tb) 1012 byte tebibyte (Tibyte) 240 byte
petabyte (Pb) 1015 byte pebibyte (Pibyte) 250 byte
exabyte (Eb) 1018 byte exbibyte (Eibyte) 260 byte
zettabyte (Zb) 1021 byte zebibyte (Zibyte) 270 byte
yottabyte (Yb) 1024 byte yobibyte (Yibyte) 280 byte

By looking at these 2 previous tables - you might ask yourself - but what is the difference. Well - really only if you handle Bytes or Bits. This is the main differenciator.
So - what does this mean for us ? Check for yourself with some examples:

MediaMetric SystemBinary System
100GB Harddisk100 Gigabyte93,1 Gibibyte
DVD Rom 54,7 Gigabyte4,37 Gibibyte
CD Rom 700 Megabyte700 Mebibyte
1 GB Ram1,074 Gigabyte1 Gibibyte
USB Stick 8GB8 Gigabyte7,45 Gibibyte
DSL 2000 2,0 Megabit1,91 Mebibit
Memory Interface 256Bit 256 Bit256 Bit
Memory Interface 1.024Bit 1,024 Kilobit1 Kibibit
 

Entered by smurphy on Tuesday, 09 October 2007 @ 14:21:38  
Nothing Specific - META Questions, # Hits: 62103
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Question ? Backup script usage - Full backup first, then incremental !   [
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 Note that the Incremental-Backups require a full-backup to be run first. The script will tell you this in case you try to run incremental backups without the system having performed a full-backup first. 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 31 August 2005 @ 22:23:05  
Questions on specific software - Stargate's Backup script, # Hits: 74310
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Question ? Where can I download the stargate-backup script ?   [
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 Latest version of the backup-script can always be found in the download section: Networking Tools / Basic scripts section on my site. 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 31 August 2005 @ 23:16:22  
Questions on specific software - Stargate's Backup script, # Hits: 74306
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Question ? Known problems on the Backup-script ?   [
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 There are actually no known problems. One issue however remains - as on every backups software. When the file-list is generated for a backup - and the time to archive the file itself has come - sometimes several minutes lay between where b.e. a User could have deleted a mail in it's cyrus-Mail spool folder. You'll have a little warning message from the cronjob - that's it. The script will not stop working. 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 15 February 2006 @ 22:19:33  
Questions on specific software - Stargate's Backup script, # Hits: 74250
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Question ? What is the mirror mode ?   [
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 The mirror mode is actually a special case, where the mirror_list.cfg configuration file is used - which content usually is:

all;/

Note that the system will also honor the exclude_list ! even in mirror mode - this to prevent backuping stuff we don't require.
The mirror mode will make a backup of the entire system - required to restore it b.e. in case of a harddisk-crash. Backup of my own system is about 1.7GB.
Note that you might need to restore the /dev Directory by hand - as the find-process makes some junk from time to time in there. 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 15 February 2006 @ 12:22:48  
Questions on specific software - Stargate's Backup script, # Hits: 74242
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Question ? How do I install the backup scripts ?   [
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 Install the RPM-archive with:

rpm -Uhv stargate-backup-x.xx-xmdk.noarch.rpm

If you install the tar-file - make sure the files are in the following locations:

/etc/backup/backup.cfg
/etc/backup/backup_list.cfg
/etc/backup/exclude_list.cfg
/etc/backup/mirror_list.cfg
/etc/backup/nocompress.cfg
/etc/cron.d/Backup
/usr/bin/Backup.sh
/usr/share/doc/stargate-backup-1.35/GPL_V2.txt
/usr/share/doc/stargate-backup-1.35/README
/usr/share/doc/stargate-backup-1.35/stargate_backup.spec
/var/backup

Edit the /etc/backup/*.cfg files - and adapt to your needs. Explanations are in there. Make sure you have the Backup-Directory well defined.

Make a test with - as user root:

~#Backup.sh -f # for a full backup
~#Backup.sh -i # for an Incremental Backup - since last full backup !

The report will tell you where to find your backed-up archives. If all runs fine - activate the Cronjob by editing the /etc/cron.d/Backup file (Uncomment the respective lines and adapt times).

NOTE: First run a Full-backup - else the incremental backups will fail ! 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 31 August 2005 @ 22:36:22  
Questions on specific software - Stargate's Backup script, # Hits: 74209
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Question ? How do I recover data from the backup archive ?   [
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 First - find out what backup-file you do require in the so called list-file, e.g.:

bzip2 -dc system_www_2005-08-12_incr.list.bz | less

If you require only one specific file - extract it to a temporary directory - e.g.:

afio -i -Z -P bzip2 system_www_2005-08-12_incr.afio

Note - that you can get the options out of the regular backup-report you get:

*** Compression: yes (-Z -P bzip2 -Q -c)

If you add a supplementary -v -z - you'll also have some listing flying over your screen. 

Entered by smurphy on Thursday, 01 September 2005 @ 00:07:23  
Questions on specific software - Stargate's Backup script, # Hits: 74199
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Question ? What's the stargate Backup script ?   [
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 The biggest problem with all the backup solutions that do exist require loads of hardware and resources to actually work. What I was looking for - was a small solution - not requiring loads of resources, simple to set up - and providing a reliable backup of important data. This is what Stargate's backup script is providing.
The main features of the system are:

  • Compress files before writing them into the archive (e.g. you can recover part of the files if the archive is corrupt)
  • Does not compress files that are already compressed. Speeds up the backup process. Also gives the possibility to choose specific file extensions to not compress.
  • Ability to exclude files/directories using wildcards
  • Generates a report - sent out to root through cron The report also shows the actual configuration settings. Check out the attached example reports - taken from a real-backup environment
  • Perform full,mirror and incremental backups (controlled through cron)
  • Archive rotation is included, e.g. rotate archive X times before deleting them.
  • Quiet mode operation if requested
  • simple easy installation and configuration
  • Script locking - to prevent the backup script is started more than once.

Requirements: The following programs need to be installed - afio, bzip2, sed, awk, find, bash. Any Linux system should have these installed (afio needs to be explicitely installed).  

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 31 August 2005 @ 23:15:55  
Questions on specific software - Stargate's Backup script, # Hits: 74143

Attach   Incremental_backup.txt  [ 5,143 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   Full_backup.txt  [ 5,580 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   Mirror_backup.txt  [ 2,381 bytes - text/plain ]
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Question ? Why has tar archiver been removed from the backup-script feature ?   [
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 The tar archive is a nice tool, used by many people - however has some specific restrictions.

As afio comes in with real-nice support for exclude files/firectories xxx, nocompress file with extension xxx etc. and compression of files before writing them into an archive - some of these features would have required to be explicitely programmed - which would have bloated the script - which IMHO I kept as simple as possible. 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 31 August 2005 @ 23:16:46  
Questions on specific software - Stargate's Backup script, # Hits: 74122
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Question ? How do I configure the backup-script ?   [
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 The following files do exist:

  • backup.cfg This is the general configuration file. You can configure the general beheaviour of the backup system, as setting defaults. Check the file itself for details.
  • exclude_list.cfg With this file - you define all files, directories you don't want to be included in the backup. wildcards (regular expressions) are allowed - Format is simple: one per line. Check the file for an example.
  • mirror_list.cfg The mirror file list configuration. This for the mirror backup. Format is simple:

    Directory/Name

    This will result in a backup-file prefix of:

    Name_YYYY-MM-DD_Type.afio
    Name_YYYY-MM-DD_Type.list.bz
    

  • backup_list.cfg The regular backup-list. This is the list ofr directories/files done on a regular base. The System will perform Incremental/Full backups using this configuration file. Format is as before:

    Directory/Name

    This will result in a backup-file prefix of:

    Name_YYYY-MM-DD_Type.afio
    Name_YYYY-MM-DD_Type.list.bz
    

  • nocompress.cfg List of file-extensions to not compress. This is a nice thing - to define special file type to not beeing compressed. Note that the system will only handle that on the file-name extensions. Format is a space separated list on one line. check the file for an example.

To make all these work nicely together - a cronjob will schedule all these to make sure you always have a nice backup of important data laying around. Following time-schedules have proved to be OK for a Private home-system:

  • 4h05am - Incremental every day - except on sunday mornings
  • 4h05am - Full backup on sundays
  • 7h05am - Mirror backup once the first of every month

Saved my Data more than once already ! 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 31 August 2005 @ 22:32:55  
Questions on specific software - Stargate's Backup script, # Hits: 74032

Attach   backup.cfg  [ 1,295 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   backup_list.cfg  [ 110 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   mirror_list.cfg  [ 7 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   nocompress.cfg  [ 389 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   Backup.cron  [ 571 bytes - text/plain ]
Attach   exclude_list.cfg  [ 120 bytes - text/plain ]
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Question ? Firefox 3 beta and prefetch-next ?   [
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 The Firefox release 3 has an issue many do not see as a security issue. It actually downloads into the cache the first entry in a Google search it finds.
The only possibility howe ver to disable this - is to go through the about:config and search for:

network.prefetch-next

and set it's value to false.

NOTE: The browser does not ask you to do it. It just does it ... 

Entered by smurphy on Tuesday, 27 May 2008 @ 09:03:42  
Ubuntu (Kubuntu,Ubuntu,Xubuntu) - Common Linux problems, # Hits: 96400
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Question ? Adding some apps to Kubuntu   [
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 Multimedia capabilities

  • Select System -> Adept Manager
  • Search for restricted
  • Depending on your Ubuntu branch (Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu), select [branch]-restricted-extras and mark it to install. For Kubuntu by example - it would be kubuntu-restricted-extras.


compiz - or 3D Effects
If you want to enable the 3D Effects in Kubuntu - you'll need to install the following packages.

sudo aptitude install compiz compiz-kde emerald compizconfig-settings-manager fusion-icon

compizconfig-settings-manager will install loads of Gnome libraries - but that should not be the matter with nowadays harddisk sizes.
After installation is complete - go to Start -> System -> Compiz Fusion Icon and start it. Go with the right mouse button on it and start compiz.

Skype

  • Select Synaptic ->Repositories -> Third Party Software -> + ADD
  • Paste this into the APT Line: deb http://download.skype.com/linux/repos/debian/ stable non-free
  • Then search for Skype, check the corresponding box and then click Install


Google Earth / Desktop

  • Download PGP Key : linux_signing_key.pub
  • Select Synaptic -> Repositories -> Authentication -> + IMPORT KEY FILE
  • Browse to the directory where you downloaded linux_signing_key.pub and select that
  • Select Synaptic -> Repositories -> Third Party Software -> + ADD
  • Paste into the APT Line: deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free
  • Click Reload
  • Then search for Google and install the Google applications of your choice


VMware Server (Run Windows and Windows applications in Ubuntu 7.10)

  • Register for a VMware Server serial number here.
  • from terminal sudo apt-get install build-essential
  • download VMware Server for Linux - Binary (.tar.gz) here.
  • from terminal cd dir to the downloaded file and type tar zvxf VMware-server-1.0.4-56528.tar.gz
  • from terminal cd vmware-server-distrib/
  • from terminal sudo ./vmware-install.pl
  • hit the enter key for every question asked, if question doesn't accept the Enter key then select Yes.
  • Run VMware Server by selecting Applicatoins -> System Tools -> VMware Server Console


Virtual Box
Add one of the following lines according to your distribution to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://www.virtualbox.org/debian gutsy non-free
deb http://www.virtualbox.org/debian feisty non-free
deb http://www.virtualbox.org/debian edgy non-free
deb http://www.virtualbox.org/debian dapper non-free

The innotek public key for apt-secure can be downloaded here. You can add this key with

apt-key add innotek.asc

The key fingerprint is

6947 BD50 026A E8C8 9AC4  09FD 390E C3FF 927C CC73
innotek GmbH (archive signing key) 

You will need to install some additional libraries on your Linux system in order to run VirtualBox - in particular, you will need libxalan-c, libxerces-c and version 5 of libstdc++. How to install these will depend on the Linux distribution you are using. On gutsy a

sudo aptitude install virtualbox

is enough.
Check the homepage of the virtualbox project for more details.

Multimedia stuff
as the VLC player - check out VLC media player for Ubuntu Linux homepage.  

Entered by smurphy on Friday, 19 October 2007 @ 20:40:39  
Ubuntu (Kubuntu,Ubuntu,Xubuntu) - Linux Distribution Specific, # Hits: 65150
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Question ? How can I add Microsoft Fonts to my Ubuntu System ?   [
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 so - why use Microsoft Fonts ? Simple - most automated Tools generating these Even if you use OpenOffice, you might still want all the Microsoft TrueType fonts so that documents created using Word or PowerPoint look as they were supposed to when you open them with OpenOffice. Also, with the Microsoft Fonts installed web browsing will be better since the pages will look as the designer originally intended them to. Most webpages are designed with Microsoft fonts in mind. The stylesheet specify these fonts. On Linux, when these specified fonts are not available on your computer, they are replaced with generic equivalents.

With these fonts installed, you will see the page as it was designed. To install the fonts, all you need to do in Ubuntu is to install the msttcorefonts package. Instructions for installation are given below.

The Truetype Microsoft fonts provided by the package include: Andale Mono, Arial Black, Arial (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic), Comic Sans MS (Bold), Courier New (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic) , Georgia (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic), Impact, Times New Roman (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic), Trebuchet (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic), Verdana (Bold, Italic, Bold Italic), Webdings.

Installing Microsoft and Liberation Truetype fonts on Ubuntu

You can install the MS core fonts by installing the msttcorefonts package. To do this, enable the Universe component of the repositories. After you do that, use the following command from the command line:

$sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts  ttf-liberation

This will give you the core fonts, but if there are other TrueType fonts that you want installed, it is as easy as copying the font files to the ~/.fonts/ directory.

After installing new fonts, you will have to log out and log in again to be able to see and use the new fonts. If you want to avoid this, you can regenerate the fonts cache by issuing the following command:

$sudo fc-cache -fv

 

Entered by smurphy on Thursday, 17 April 2008 @ 16:23:28  
Ubuntu (Kubuntu,Ubuntu,Xubuntu) - Linux Distribution Specific, # Hits: 64113
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Question ? Can I move the boot partition of my xUbuntu System to another partition ?   [
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 The short answer is: yes.
Best is to boot using a xUbuntu live filesystem, and perform all partition information changes.
Check the following partition.

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        2550    20482843+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            2551        3766     9767520   83  Linux
/dev/sda3            3767        4028     2104515   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4            4029       24322   163006074    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5            4029        7296    26250178+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6            7297       14591    58593750+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7           14591       24322    78162050+  83  Linux

Now - I want to add another OS - in my case - Mac OS-X. So - in case you want to add the hfs+ filesystem partition between sda1 and sda2 - you have to move all partition bigger 1 to partition + 1. this would result in the following:

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1        2550    20482843+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2            2551        7415    39078112+  af  Unknown
/dev/sda3            7416       10000    20764012+  83  Linux
/dev/sda4           10001       24321   115033432+   5  Extended
/dev/sda5           10001       10262     2104452   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6           10263       13041    22322286   83  Linux
/dev/sda7           13042       19121    48837568+  83  Linux
/dev/sda8           19122       24321    41768968+  83  Linux

Now - to be able to boot up the move OS - you will need to modify 1 file, and recreate the initrd file. For this - check the uid of the swap partition with:

$ sudo blkid  | grep swap
/dev/sda5: TYPE="swap" UUID="0bb117bb-d03e-4674-99ef-97a3575ed8f1"

Check that the UUID in /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resum matches the UUID just discovered. If not - change it.
After that - recreate the initrd file with:

sudo update-initramfs -c -k 2.6.24-19-generic

Make also sure that the parition UUID's as found in the /etc/fstab match the new real ones.
And you should be able to boot again normally.

 

Entered by smurphy on Wednesday, 09 July 2008 @ 13:17:05  
Ubuntu (Kubuntu,Ubuntu,Xubuntu) - Linux Distribution Specific, # Hits: 63242
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Question ? Some apt tricks for debian based systems   [
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 View all the packages installed on a system The easiest way to do it is:

dpkg --get-selections

List files which get installed by a package -L is a handy parameter to dpkg which will show you what files a package will install.

dpkg -L package_name

In case the package is not installed - try out:

apt-file list file_name

You may need to install apt-file first though.

Upgrade your system using a one-liner Type as root:

apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

Sometimes you need to compile from source a newer version of an application which is already included in the repositories. For example, to install the development libraries for BasKet, you would run as root:

apt-get build-dep basket

Remove unused package files When you install software using APT, the DEB packages are kept inside the /var/cache/apt/archives directory. In time, the size of it could get very large. To clean the unneeded files:

apt-get clean

In case you want to have some more details - check out this link 

Entered by smurphy on Tuesday, 28 October 2008 @ 11:44:05  
Ubuntu (Kubuntu,Ubuntu,Xubuntu) - Linux Distribution Specific, # Hits: 62280
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Question ? Can I move my OS from one Harddisk to another one ?   [
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 This is not an issue. Just make sure you boot from a Live-CD, mount the Filesystems accordingly into 2 Directories like new and old, and copy all files over. I usually use the cp command like this:

~# cd /old
~# cp -aRv * /new

Whan that is done - younneed to fix 2 Things.

  • All hard-disk UUID's have changed. Identify these using blkid. Check the FAQ
  • Make sure you update the /etc/fstab and /etc/grub/menu.lst files with the UUID. If the fstab entry is wrong, you'll get a Kernel panic - cannot find root-FS. In case the Grub Entry is not fixed, you'll get an error 15, file not found when trying to boot the kernel from the boot-loader

At the end - you have to regenerate the the initial Ramdisk using mkinitramfs. Check the manpage/google for your specific OS Version.
After that - you should be fine booting again. 

Entered by smurphy on Tuesday, 17 March 2009 @ 09:07:19  
Ubuntu (Kubuntu,Ubuntu,Xubuntu) - Linux Distribution Specific, # Hits: 61088
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Question ? Why does phpPhobos look so weird in IE ?   [
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 Many people are sending me notes that my site looks screwed when browsing on it using IE. Actually - the Internet Explorer is so buggy - that you have - as a web-site developer - to program around almost every new bug release of the Internet Explorer - so I decided to just skip it. All other browsers I am testing my site with - work flawlessly - as they at least respect the basics of HTML and CSS Programming!

The best bet is to at least set your screen resolution to 1280x1024 - this is what this site has been optimized for.

Remember - to have a secure site - you need to be able to read the code !
Adding exception for every IE Bug would make it unreadable.

Note - that seeing backgrounds of strange colors on the pictures is due to the fact that IE6 is not able to show transparent PNG files. Send a Mail to microsoft for that.

Note: Many people are telling that they can not log into my site with internet Explorer using the secured https mode. For your information - this website requires a Key Exchange using normal Diffie-Hellman, and an encryption level higher 128bit. It seems many Internet Explorer Versions can only handle 128bit - and not more. Hence - you will be locked out.
Why I do this ? If the limit imposed is set to 128bit - then secret services have more problems to decrypt higher encryption levels. This is what I call - Privacy !  

Entered by smurphy on Tuesday, 18 March 2008 @ 16:24:38  
Website - PHP Phobos, # Hits: 85006
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Question ? What formatting capabilities does the local submit interface provide ?   [
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 Check the attached file for more details.
Usually you'll see the content everytime you use an Edit Interface on this site.  

Entered by smurphy on Tuesday, 28 August 2007 @ 21:11:43  
Website - PHP Phobos, # Hits: 82134

Attach   bbcode.html  [ 1,997 bytes - text/html ]
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Question ? Can we download a copy of phpPhobos ?   [
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 A release will be made available when it's ready.
Check the TODO list in the documentation section - and you'll see that a lot is still missing. 

Entered by smurphy on Tuesday, 05 February 2008 @ 21:33:55  
Website - PHP Phobos, # Hits: 82032
 
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