Waxing Cerebral

If you're in NZ, and you've got TelstraClear cable internet, congrats cos that's the best option we have.

But if you have the experience I've had, you'll be tearing your hair out. I have a couple of computers at home (only my wife's work laptop runs Windows :) and a Netgear router (WGR614 v7) connecting them to the cable modem. Since the first weeks of having the setup though, the internet connection drops off way too often (3-4 times in a work day). Telstraclear and the modem were fine; connecting just one computer direct to the modem would chug along for weeks without issues. I am on my second replacement router (that means 3rd in total) and have had conversations with Dick Smiths (router retailer) and Netgear, and still have the same problem.

Frustrations!

So today I managed to talk directly to the right people at TC to help me troubleshoot things. And lo! I have the wrong type of cable modem!!
That's right, they have two (at least) models they provide customers with, the Motorola SB5101 and 5100. I had been given the 5101, and not knowing there was an option, had blindly accepted it as the modem.

TelstraClear cable customers using a router should be provided a model 5100 cable modem.

If this is you, and you are having these problems then call them. They should replace it without a call-out fee if you had a router from the start. And how are we mere customers supposed to know this? Beat your head against various unyielding walls for a year seems to be the answer...

EDIT: Just had the modem replaced this morning. Turns out the 5101's were introduced to be more compatible with Windows XP! What a joke - you know not everyone uses Windows! And the 5100's won't fix the problem, but they should reduce the disconnects. The main cause is an issue with TC's hardware, for which they're getting in some new equipment which should resolve the issue by the end of February 2008.


Also, on the topic of things TC doesn't tell you about their cable internet service, they recently rolled out a 'customer security' measure whereby any change in MAC address connected directly to the modem will not work for a stand-down period of a number of hours. So if you change computers that are directly connected (or switch from router to computer while troubleshooting!) then you won't get a connection anyway. That took a bit of figuring out at the time. You have to ring them and ask for that 'feature' to be removed from your account. It does have security benefits, but it's a wired connection, so someone would have to be sneakily plugging into your modem or cable anyway.

Good service, but keep us informed Telstra.

Apt needs to be configured to use a proxy if you're using one (eg if using cntlm). This is done by creating /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/proxy, with content similar to:

Acquire {
Retries "0";
HTTP {
Proxy "http://127.0.0.1:3128";
};
};

How to restore grub, the linux boot manager. Maybe a Windows installation has written over the MBR?

Use a boot disk, such as Knoppix or Ubuntu LiveCD.

1. $ sudo grub
2. grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
(If it fails here, jump to 'preparing root' below)
3. grub> root (hd#,#) (where 'hd#,#' is the result of step 2)
4. grub> setup (hd#)
5. grub> quit
That's it. Done!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Preparing root
If step 2 failed above then do these steps first:
A. $ sudo mkdir /mnt/root
B. $ sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/root (where sda1 is your linux partition)
C. $ sudo mount -t proc none /mnt/root/proc
D. $ sudo mount -o bind /dev /mnt/root/dev
E. $ sudo chroot /mnt/root /bin/bash
Now start again from step 2 above.

Full credit to the guys on this thread at ubuntuforums.

• FATAL
• ERROR
• WARN
• INFO
• DEBUG
• TRACE

I was stuck trying to get through a MS Proxy Server. Thankfully people have magicked a way around it. Get NTLMaps and read these instructions, particularly note the dpkg-reconfigure line, it's easily missed.

EDIT: Wohoa! While NTLMaps is a great tool, it was using 130% of my dual-core 2GHz processor! Thankfully there is a much slicker alternative: cntlm. This puppy is C-based and has a much lower overhead. Http responses seem to be faster as well. The compilation from source is quite straight forward as well, with no dependencies.

You'll need to configure proxy settings on the box now, e.g.:
apt

A place for my notes on the things I've done to get Xubuntu Feisty (Ubuntu is the same procedure) running from scratch on my Toshiba Tecra P5 laptop (PTS53A-02F01D).

Started by trying to boot into the LiveCD. This failed with:
/bin/sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
This message is a symptom of any boot problems - after some figuring out it turned out that there were problems with the cd module.
To fix, restart and on the boot screen, push F6. Edit the boot command ('e'), add:
break=top
(type 'b') to boot
This causes booting to stop early in the boot process (I think) and lets you type in stuff. When the prompt comes up, type:
modprobe piix
exit
This loads the module required to read the cd.

Booting then seems to continue happily but eventually it just freezes with text on the screen. This is because it doesn't recognise the video driver properly. We need to use the xorg default driver for now.
Pushing Ctrl+Alt+F1 takes you to the single user login.
sudo -s
vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf - (This uses the editor 'vi'. If you're not familiar with this, use 'i' to change to edit mode, 'esc' to come back out of edit mode, 'x' to delete a letter (when not in edit mode), ':w' to save (write) the file and ':q' to quit.)
change driver "nv" to "vesa" then exit
/etc/init.d/gdm restart
And Ubuntu should boot!

So play with it, enjoy the LiveCD, and when ready, double click 'install' on the desktop.

At first it couldn't manage to partition the hard drive, and unfortunately killed Windows :(.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ONLY DO THIS SECTION IF IT CAN NOT WRITE THE PARTITIONS - THIS WILL KILL WINDOWS.

I managed to get the disk manageable again by running:
mkfs /dev/sda
Now I could partition with:
cfdisk
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Congratulations, you should now be booting into Ubuntu :)

CD
So, in order to get continued cd support, we need to tell Ubuntu to load piix each time it boots. To do this, open a terminal and type:
sudo vi /etc/modules
To the end of this file, add:
piix

Graphics
I had difficulty setting up the nvidia graphics driver and really wanted the goods. So I found envy. Brilliant. Get it, run it. It downloads and installs the correct nvidia proprietary video drivers.

Sound
Initially I had a hardware problem so couldn't get sound at all which was very frustrating. Now that the hardware's fixed, it's fine. (Antony Williams also has a great script for automatically getting the latest alsa development drivers, should you need them.) Currently, plugging in headphones has no impact (i.e. sound still comes out of speakers and headphones are dead), so will update here when I resolve.
EDIT (Feb 08): I now have headphones sound as of alsa v1.0.16. You can find out your current alsa version by running:

1. I need to mute the main speakers manually when I plug in the headphones
2. Microphone doesn't work, either built-in or plugged-in

Hold down the following keys at boot time for:

Single user: command + s

Select boot drive: opt

Boot from dvd drive: c


At command line, mount the harddrive by: # /sbin/mount -wu /
Start OS X by: # /sbin/SystemStarter

So often you want to copy files and folders between directories, but using cp all the file permissions are stuffed up and symlinks just cause problems. Not with good old tar!

cd into source dir

$ tar cf - * | (cd ../targetdir; tar -xf -)

with 'sudo' before each tar if required.

It's too good!

On mac osx

$ lsbom {package name}.pkg/Contents/Archive.bom


Very handy for uninstalls!

Just came across this trailer for a new movie-doco detailing all about the electric cars that were in production and completely viable 10 years ago, but were inexplicably scrapped by GM. Mike Moore-style conspiracy theories maybe, but there seem to be facts aplenty in the movie to support hidden agendas. But as with all big corporate and political (did I differentiate the two?) agendas, what can you do?

Who Killed the Electric Car?