Archive for the ‘Linux’ Category

“host not found” on nxclient connect to nxserver

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Cause: my user couldn’t read /etc/hosts

2 essential rescue CDs…

Monday, December 17th, 2007

For when you need to resize the partition you usually work in

GParted LiveCD

And for when you’ve muffed up your grub installation, and can’t work out how to use grub-install

Super Grub Disk

Minimal Ubuntu install

Monday, December 3rd, 2007

From http ://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=207847,

$ sudo aptitude install x-window-system-core gnome-core gdm firefox synaptic xubuntu-system-tools gnome-app-install

Q: Why can’t I open a window on another Linux machine?

Thursday, October 27th, 2005

… even though the firewall is configured correctly…

A: Ubuntu/Gnome sets TCP off by default in gdm.conf. So if its a new installation, or you’ve upgraded without saving the changes you made previously, edit gdm.conf…

CoLinux for Ubuntu

Thursday, July 28th, 2005

To install from scratch, follow instructions for installing Debian Sid here

Now upgrade Debian Sid to Ubuntu Hoary

  1. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list, comment out Debian references, insert Hoary ones
  2. apt-get update
  3. apt-get dist-upgrade

Alternatively, if you already have Ubuntu installed on a separate partition, then you can follow the the instructions for running a dual-boot CoLinux setup

Installing CoLinux on WindowsXP

Thursday, July 28th, 2005

This assumes that you don’t already have a Linux installation on a dual-boot machine that you want to use, and are going to install Linux from scratch. If you do already have a working Linux setup, then you can use it. The CoLinux FAQ explains how to configure coLinux on a dual-boot machine

  1. Get a 2nd IP address assigned that you can use on your Windows machine for the colinux interface (assuming you’ve already got one assigned to the main interface)
  2. Download colinux-0.6.2.exe from sourceforge onto the Windows machine.
  3. Run colinux-0.6.2.exe on the Windows machine
  4. By default, this will install into c:\Program Files\coLinux. I prefer it to be in c:\coLinux.
  5. The setup program claims it needs 7.6MB for a complete install including root filesystem.
  6. You’ll be offered a choice of distributions – choose Debian
  7. Decompress the Debian filesystem. You’ll need bunzip2, I used the version from cygwin, but you can, I think, also use the Tugzip Windows program
  8. Edit the default.config.xml, and change root_fs to be your unzipped debian filesystem. (If you don’t do this, you’ll get “Device index not specified” when you try to start colinux.
  9. I also increase “memory size”.
  10. You should now be able to run “colinux-daemon -c default.config.xml” and get a live colinux process.
  11. Login as root and change the default root password from “root”
  12. Edit /etc/network/interfaces and /etc/resolv.conf to set the interface’s IP address, router and default nameserver.
  13. Halt colinux
  14. Setup networking. I used a bridge network between my ethernet and the TAP interface created at the time of colinux install, using the native Windows bridging. (You can also use the WinPCAP option)
  15. Look for new interface in Control Panel. Mine was called “Local Area Connection”, since I’d renamed the original Ethernet to “Ethernet LAN”.
  16. Bridge between this and the external interface
  17. Bring up colinux and login as root.
  18. Once you know it works, install it as a service.

So now you’ve got a running CoLinux installation running Debian Woody.

Now upgrade Debian Woody to Debian Sid

  1. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and change stable to unstable
  2. apt-get update
  3. apt-get dist-upgrade

Printing to Windows XP printer from Ubuntu

Tuesday, May 24th, 2005

Enable “Print Services for Unix” on Windows XP machine and share printer. (I’m not actually sure that this is necessary, it might be a red herring…)

When you add the printer in Ubuntu,

  1. Choose “Network Printer” and “Windows Printer (SMB)”
  2. put your Workgroup in the Host field
  3. Put “guest@<host>/<printer>” in the Printer field (replacing <host> and <printer> with your host & printer names)

So, for example, if your Windows machine was called “Dozer” and your printer was called “LaserPrinter”, you would put “guest@Dozer/LaserPrinter”.

You should not need a name and password for the Windows machine for this to work.

Note: please note that case-sensitivity is important.. e.g. If you think your machine name is “DOMINO”, it should be “Domino” in the config above.

Example xorg.conf file

Monday, April 18th, 2005

Here’s an example xorg.conf which works with X-out on a PVR-350 with a PAL TV

MythTV / PVR-350 / Ubuntu

Monday, April 18th, 2005

This blog entry used to contain an overview for constructing a MythTV box from Ubuntu and a Hauppauge PVR-350 card.

I’ve moved it from the blog into a permanent page here.

X-Out on a PVR-350

Monday, April 18th, 2005

Install the ivtv driver as described here http://www.willmer.com/kb/2005/02/installing-ivtv-driver-for-pvr-350-card/

Then, following the instructions in utils/README.X11,

install -c -m 0444 ivtvdev_drv_o /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers/ivtvdev_drv.o

Then, set your default kernel to use a frame buffer.

Add
vga=791

to your kernel line

Add this to the line starting # kopt… in /boot/grub/menu.lst

vga=791

Identify the PCD ID of the PVR-350 card.

lspci

and look for the line relating to the PVR card. Mine says this…


0000:02:06.0 Multimedia video controller: Internext Compression Inc iTVC15 MPEG-2 Encoder (rev 01)

The first column gives you the bus, slot, function. You’ll need this for the xorg.conf.

Then add this to /etc/X11/xorg.conf

# add this as the first ServerLayout if you want it load automatically
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "TV"
Screen 0 "TV"
InputDevice "Generic Keyboard"
InputDevice "Configured Mouse"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Hauppauge PVR350"
Driver "ivtvdev"
Option "fbdev" "/dev/fb1"
BusID "0:02:06" # this is the PCI ID you got earlier.
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "PAL Monitor"
HorizSync 30-68
VertRefresh 50-120
Mode "720x576"
DotClock 42.6
HTimings 720 760 832 944
VTimings 576 577 580 602
Flags "-HSync" "-VSync"
EndMode
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "TV"
Device "Hauppauge PVR350"
Monitor "PAL Monitor"
DefaultDepth 24
DefaultFbbpp 32
Subsection "Display"
Depth 24
FbBpp 32
EndSubsection
EndSection

You can see the entire xorg.conf file here.

Reboot and see if it works…

Not working? You may need to rebuild the kernel to get it going

Follow the instructions at http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/KernelHowto