So I just recently upgraded an old server from etch to lenny, that was hosting some files on a samba share for an ultra old Windows 98 machine. Anyways, upgrade went fine, but I ran into a problem authenticating the windows 98 machine to the samba share after the upgrade. Getting the old IPC$ invalid password deal. After stubling around with samaba for a while I found that at some point between the two releases they have disabled lanman authentication as it's rather unsecure and such. And it turns out that is fine, as long as you don't have any windows machines older than XP. So I had to enabled laman authentication in the samba config file by adding the line lanman auth = yes to my /etc/samba/smb.conf file. That did the trick, and now the ancient windows 98 machine can login to the file server again.

posted at: 16:10 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I had a problem with opening some java applications in awesome where the app would just come up with a blank screen. It looks like this is due to a bug in java with windows managers that are non-reparenting, which is what awesome is (along with xmonad, dwm, ratpoison, Ion3, etc). Seems you can trick it by impersonating another windows manager which seems to do the trick for me:

sudo apt-get install dwm-tools
wmname LG3D

Reference: http://awesome.naquadah.org/wiki/Problems_with_Java

posted at: 00:40 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I hate dealing with flash for linux, but it always comes up that people need flashplayer 10 installed, and getting it on a 64 bit platform (without running it through ndiswrapper) is kind of a pain. Anyways, I always end up having to do this, so I thought I'd put this here for future reference.

• uninstall any existing flash install apt-get remove flashplugin-nonfree flashplugin-installer
• download newest flash 10 64bit: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10_64bit.html
• sudo tar zxvf libflashplayer-10.0.45.2.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz -C /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

posted at: 18:38 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I was just setting up a minimalistic netboot machine and needed metacity for a windows manager so I typed in apt-get install metacity and got the following:

# apt-get install metacity
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  desktop-file-utils doc-base dvd+rw-tools evolution-data-server evolution-data-server-common genisoimage gnome-about gnome-applets gnome-applets-data gnome-control-center gnome-desktop-data gnome-doc-utils gnome-media gnome-netstatus-applet gnome-panel gnome-panel-data gnome-session gnome-settings-daemon
  gnome-system-monitor gnome-user-guide gstreamer0.10-alsa gstreamer0.10-plugins-base gstreamer0.10-plugins-good gstreamer0.10-x libaa1 libapm1 libasound2 libcairomm-1.0-1 libcdio7 libcdparanoia0 libcompress-raw-zlib-perl libcompress-zlib-perl libedata-book1.2-2 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserverui1.2-8 libeel2-2.20
  libeel2-data libegroupwise1.2-13 libenchant1c2a libexempi3 libexif12 libflac8 libfont-afm-perl libfreezethaw-perl libgdata-google1.2-1 libgdata1.2-1 libglibmm-2.4-1c2a libgnome-window-settings1 libgnomekbd-common libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0 libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a libgucharmap6
  libgweather-common libgweather1 libhtml-format-perl libhtml-parser-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl libhunspell-1.2-0 libio-compress-base-perl libio-compress-zlib-perl liblcms1 libmalaga7 libmldbm-perl libmozjs1d libnautilus-extension1 libnet-dbus-perl libnotify1 liboobs-1-4 librarian0 libsexy2 libslab0
  libsoup2.4-1 libtie-ixhash-perl libtrackerclient0 libuuid-perl libvoikko1 libwavpack1 libwww-perl libxklavier12 libxml-parser-perl libxml-twig-perl libxml-xpath-perl myspell-en-us nautilus nautilus-cd-burner nautilus-data notification-daemon system-tools-backends wodim xulrunner-1.9 yelp
Suggested packages:
  cdrskin evolution evolution-data-server-dbg cdrkit-doc tomboy cpufreqd cpudyn powernowd esound-clients gnome-screensaver xscreensaver gnome2-user-guide gnome-system-tools libasound2-plugins libvisual-0.4-plugins gnome-app-install liblcms-utils voikko-fi libio-socket-ssl-perl libunicode-map8-perl
  libunicode-string-perl xml-twig-tools eog evince pdf-viewer totem mp3-decoder tracker fam xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  desktop-file-utils doc-base dvd+rw-tools evolution-data-server evolution-data-server-common genisoimage gnome-about gnome-applets gnome-applets-data gnome-control-center gnome-desktop-data gnome-doc-utils gnome-media gnome-netstatus-applet gnome-panel gnome-panel-data gnome-session gnome-settings-daemon
  gnome-system-monitor gnome-user-guide gstreamer0.10-alsa gstreamer0.10-plugins-base gstreamer0.10-plugins-good gstreamer0.10-x libaa1 libapm1 libasound2 libcairomm-1.0-1 libcdio7 libcdparanoia0 libcompress-raw-zlib-perl libcompress-zlib-perl libedata-book1.2-2 libedata-cal1.2-6 libedataserverui1.2-8 libeel2-2.20
  libeel2-data libegroupwise1.2-13 libenchant1c2a libexempi3 libexif12 libflac8 libfont-afm-perl libfreezethaw-perl libgdata-google1.2-1 libgdata1.2-1 libglibmm-2.4-1c2a libgnome-window-settings1 libgnomekbd-common libgnomekbd2 libgnomekbdui2 libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0 libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a libgucharmap6
  libgweather-common libgweather1 libhtml-format-perl libhtml-parser-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl libhunspell-1.2-0 libio-compress-base-perl libio-compress-zlib-perl liblcms1 libmalaga7 libmldbm-perl libmozjs1d libnautilus-extension1 libnet-dbus-perl libnotify1 liboobs-1-4 librarian0 libsexy2 libslab0
  libsoup2.4-1 libtie-ixhash-perl libtrackerclient0 libuuid-perl libvoikko1 libwavpack1 libwww-perl libxklavier12 libxml-parser-perl libxml-twig-perl libxml-xpath-perl metacity myspell-en-us nautilus nautilus-cd-burner nautilus-data notification-daemon system-tools-backends wodim xulrunner-1.9 yelp
0 upgraded, 95 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
35 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 73.9MB of archives.
After this operation, 194MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
Abort.

So then I'm thinking, "what the hell?", I don't need any of those extra packages that it plans to install. How does installing metacity require the gnome-system-monitor? So I did a quick search and it turns out the default behaviour has changed in lenny to install recommended packages by default. And you can change that behaviour by adding a couple lines to your /etc/apt/apt.conf file (just create it if it doesn't exist), and add:

APT::Install-Recommends "0";
APT::Install-Suggests "0";

That changed the my install down to:

# apt-get install metacity
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
  gnome-control-center
Recommended packages:
  gnome-session x-session-manager
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  metacity
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.

That is much more like it...

posted at: 19:41 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I recently built a new home server box using an Intel Atom (BOXD945GCLF2 Atom 330 Dual Core 1.6Ghz to be exact), and ran into a strange problem where the box would crash with an error like this:

[322865.976030] ------------[ cut here ]------------
[322865.976038] WARNING: at net/sched/sch_generic.c:226 dev_watchdog+0xf6/0x18b()
[322865.976043] Hardware name:
[322865.976047] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0 (r8169): transmit timed out
[322865.976051] Modules linked in: ipt_MASQUERADE xt_limit xt_helper xt_multiport xt_DSCP xt_tcpudp xt_state ipt_LOG ipt_REJECT iptable_nat nf_nat nf_conntrack_ipv4 nf_conntrack nf_defrag_ipv4 iptable_filter iptable_mangle ip_tables x_tables ipv6 fuse loop hid_pl hid_cypress hid_zpff hid_gyration hid_sony hid_ntrig hid_samsung hid_microsoft hid_tmff hid_monterey hid_ezkey hid_apple hid_a4tech hid_logitech ff_memless hid_cherry hid_sunplus hid_petalynx hid_belkin hid_chicony usbhid hid ds2490 wire cn serio_raw 8139too i2c_i801 rng_core 8139cp parport_pc evdev i2c_core floppy parport ehci_hcd uhci_hcd button thermal processor iTCO_wdt thermal_sys usbcore
[322865.976152] Pid: 0, comm: swapper Not tainted 2.6.29.1 #1
[322865.976156] Call Trace:
[322865.976167]  [] warn_slowpath+0x80/0xb6
[322865.976176]  [] cpumask_next_and+0x23/0x33
[322865.976184]  [] find_busiest_group+0x2fa/0x7e2
[322865.976193]  [] sched_clock_cpu+0x136/0x147
[322865.976200]  [] dev_watchdog+0xf6/0x18b
[322865.976207]  [] hrtimer_forward+0x10c/0x124
[322865.976214]  [] scheduler_tick+0x9c/0x1a3
[322865.976220]  [] getnstimeofday+0x4c/0xcf
[322865.976227]  [] lapic_next_event+0x10/0x13
[322865.976233]  [] dev_watchdog+0x0/0x18b
[322865.976241]  [] run_timer_softirq+0x14a/0x1b4
[322865.976247]  [] dev_watchdog+0x0/0x18b
[322865.976254]  [] __do_softirq+0x8c/0x130
[322865.976260]  [] do_softirq+0x45/0x53
[322865.976266]  [] irq_exit+0x35/0x62
[322865.976272]  [] smp_apic_timer_interrupt+0x71/0x7b
[322865.976280]  [] apic_timer_interrupt+0x28/0x30
[322865.976287]  [] mwait_idle+0x4c/0x5a
[322865.976293]  [] cpu_idle+0x60/0x7a
[322865.976298] ---[ end trace f9e87d98b4ee5218 ]---
[322866.001730] r8169: eth0: link up

It would always happen while transfering large amounts of data out from the server through the onboard gigabyte ethernet listed in lspci as:

01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)

Sometimes it would sort of freeze up the machine for a minute or two, and others it crashed and rebooted. Anyways, tracking the problem down was quite the pain since it only happened sometimes when transfering large amounts of data. Searching for a fix also was hard, and I found many others with the same problem with this realtek NIC, but no one had a solution. But I eventually stumbled upon this post which was the same problem and the last post is someone saying they were going to try the pci=nomsi boot option. I guess it worked for him and so he never posted back, so I tried that out myself and it seems to have fixed the problem.

The pci=nomsi option seems to disable MSI (Message Signaled Interrupt) which is a feature of the PCI bus revision 2.3 or later. It seems like it sometimes causes problems as it is the solution to a number of different problems with pci devices not working so well.

posted at: 01:37 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I just ran into a problem running with Ubuntu 8.04 install on a machine that would cause the installtion to start booting from CD and then dump you to a Busybox shell with an initramfs prompt. After searching around it looks to be an issue with the IDE/SATA controllers on some motherboards. I ended up fixing the issue by following some instruction from various others that were having the same problem:

Bug #222176: initramfs error/problem ubuntu 8.04

In my case it seems hitting F6 and appending the boot option pci=nomsi solved the problem in my case. Others reported appending all_generic_ide floppy=off irqpoll that solved the issue for them.

posted at: 16:05 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I wanted to run my own startup script, since I've been using awesome windows manager lately, and wanted to run a few items at startup as well. This ended up being more difficult than it should have been probably, but it works. I ended up just creating a ~/.xsession file like so:

xbindkeys &
exec awesome

Then just made that file executable. I then edited my ~/.dmrc file and changed "Session=awesome" to "Session=custom". That tells GDM to launch X using your ~/.xsession instead of a specific windows manager, allowing you to run whatever you want at startup as well.

posted at: 01:55 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

Hurt pointed me to a program he found called Zim wiki. It's similar to Tomboy notes but different in many ways as well. It runs more as an app, and less as a tray item. The other very cool thing about it is that all the notes are just stored in standard plain text with normal wiki markup type language, making them easily viewable and editable from the command line. Anyways, I'm finding it really quite good and wanted to run the latest version (Debian Etch has 0.17, but 0.25 is out). In order to run it on Etch I had to upgrade a couple perl modules by switching my sources to testing and doing a

apt-get install libfile-desktopentry-perl libmodule-build-perl libfile-basedir-perl

After that it's just a matter of untar'ing the source, and running the binary (<src dir>/bin/zim). Also to make things even more useful, there exists a Tomboy 2 Zim python script to convert your notes if you were using Tomboy.

posted at: 23:08 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I noticed the ibook getting really warm during compiles, and a quick search showed that I needed to load a module to properly monitor the temperature and thus start the fan. Sure enough as soon as I did modprobe therm_adt746x the fan started up. I made sure to add this to the /etc/modules

This also provides /sys/devices/temperatures/sensor1_tempature (and sensor2_temperature) which were at 60 when I first modprobe'd the module but quickly dropped.

posted at: 22:33 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

So I decided to do an upgrade on my desktop machine to give it some more power, and cycle down the old system to replace my server as it could really use an upgrade. Did some searching and decided to go with a Intel Core Duo 2 2.4ghz on an Asus P5B board with 4 gigs of ram. Got it all home this evening and started tearing apart my system and installing all the new shinny computer parts. Got it all together without much problem and then started on getting my desktop back up and going. This is where things started getting tricky.

First, the bios was only showing 3 gigs of ram no matter what I tried. After doing a bios upgrade (which you can do on flash memory stick these days), I found a site mentioning a bios setting that you need to change to make it show 4 gigs. (BIOS -> Advanced -> Chipset -> North Bridge Configuration -> Memory Remap Feature).

So after finally getting that sorted out I decided to do a fresh install of debian on a new hard drive I got for the machine. Went through and finished the install, but then realized I only had 2 gigs of ram available. Thinking it was a kernel option I had seen before I recompiled the kernel with 4 gig memory support but no change. Then after doing some googling found out that you need to be running the AMD64 port to be able to access that much memory.

So, I then downloaded the AMD64 installer (which is kind of a strange name since it seems to cover all x86_64 chips). I then ran into a problem with the installer and this particular board it seems and for the installer to not hang you need to run it with the option agp=off so that it doesn't attempt to load the intel_agp driver which seems to cause problems.

But now it seems the system is finally up and going. And this is the first 64bit system I've actually installed as well so that should be interesting...

posted at: 02:55 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I've been trying out some other email clients lately as thunderbird always seems to be using alot of memory and gets slower after time if it's been open for a long time. I started using sylpheed-claws at work and although it took a little getting used too it seems to be working quite nicely. It's memory usage looks be alot better too (although I don't know how accurate this test is, thunderbird running for a day, sylpheed-claws running for 2 days):

pmap -d thunderbird pid
mapped: 140680K writeable/private: 108296K shared: 1284K

pmap -d sylpheed-claws-gtk2 pid
mapped: 38156K writeable/private: 16136K shared: 1112K

Also, if you plan on installing sylpheed-claws on debian make sure you get the plugins too as they are most useful.
apt-get install sylpheed-claws-gtk2 sylpheed-claws-gtk2-plugins sylpheed-claws-gtk2-extra-plugins

posted at: 19:19 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I don't know why I didn't look for this earlier, but I was just thinking about it now and a quick google search yeilds the answer to tab completion in the python shell (much like tab complete in bash). Simply execute:


import rlcompleter
import readline
readline.parse_and_bind("tab: complete")


and your all set. I don't know how I got by without it :)

posted at: 22:59 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I've been doing alot of coding lately and it's gotten to the point that keeping track of things is cumbersome. So I decided to start using cvs, and after getting it all setup and working stubled across subversion, which is a improved cvs in alot of ways. So I ended up setting it all up and getting it running with a local server. The setup of the server was pretty simple and it was just a matter of reading over the docs about how to actually use it. The other great thing is that it integrates nicely into komodo so I can do updates/commits and so on right in my development area. I'm only using subversion with a single developer so alot of the main features of subversion don't really apply to me, but it does allow me to keep revisions of everything I'm working on which is a good thing, and allows me to switch from working at home/work a few steps easier.

posted at: 02:21 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

Reading slashdot today I came across a link to a project called Beagle. It looks really interesting and something that would benifit people like my mom or others who don't care to understand how things get stored on the computer. They have some nice demos that show beagle in action on the site that are done in flash. Worth checking out if your interested... Installing it is a little more work as the filesystem needs to support extended attributes and possible inotify (in order to have it pick up changes to files instantly). Extended attributes aren't hard to setup, but inotify does require a patch to the kernel at this point. I think I may give this a try later if I can find the time.

posted at: 10:50 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I went out and picked up an Epson Stylus Photo R200 printer the other day when buying a new pack of DVD-R after deciding it might be nice to print to dvd's instead of writing on them. The printer was very cheap and a quick look up on the net I found people were using it sucessfully in linux. After getting it home and hooking it up I set it up in CUPS and printed a quick test page without any problems. However, printing to cd/dvd's was a little more trouble, and so I thought I'd outline what I had to do as I wasn't able to find any specific information on what is required.

First, I'm running Debian Sarge on my system. Using the gimpprint drivers that come with sarge you can't do the cd printing (at least I couldn't find a way). So I downloaded the newest development drivers from sourceforge.net. I downloaded the latest gutenprint-5.0 beta drivers (beta 4 at the time), and untared them. In order to compile the drivers I needed to install a few development packages in debian as well. The following command should do the trick:

apt-get install libcupsys2-dev libcupsimage2-dev libgimp2.0-dev libreadline5-dev libijs-dev debhelper xlibs-dev zlib1g-dev flex gettext foomatic-db-engine chrpath

After that simply enter the source directory and run ./configure then make then make install and if everything goes without errors you should have the newest drivers. At this point, restart CUPS (/etc/init.d/cupsys restart) and then setup your printer through the CUPS administration page (http://localhost:631/). When selecting the Model/Driver for your printer, choose the "EPSON Stylus Photo R200 - CUPS+Gutenprint v5.0.0-beta4 (en)" driver. Now that the printer is setup with that driver you will have the ability to select the CD tray for paper source.

If your using The Gimp creating an image to print on the CD is quite easy (I'm using the gimp 2.2.6 which is in debian stable (sarge). Simply go to file new, and from the template dropdown select "CD cover". Create the text/image you want on the cd/dvd (remember a cd is round, and so text in the corners of the template will not be printed obviously). Go to file->print, and select "Print to CD" for the Media Source, and if your cd/dvd is hub printable, select "Print to Hub" for the CD Hub Size (that is the center of the cd/dvd isn't clear and can be printed to). For the paper size choose "CD - 5 inch" and then you should be set. Load the cd/dvd into the tray, insert into the printer and click print.

posted at: 13:14 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I installed dspam 3.0.0 many moons ago and set it up for single user usage through procmail for my main email account. It worked very well indeed and has been doing it's job well. I decided today to upgrade and change to a server based install so that everyone can use it. Since it was a bit of a pain to install I thought I'd share some details as to possibly help someone else in a similar situation.

First, I'm running debian unstable with exim 4 as the MTA. I was running mysql 4.0 but upgraded to 4.1 as it was recommended in the latest version of dspam (3.4.4 at this time). The mysql upgrade was painless (apt-get install mysql-server-4.1) and didn't break anything else I am using it for.

The next step was getting dspam installed. It's not currently a debian package but work is being done to change that at http://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-dspam/ I downloaded the latest cvs version of the files from there and created debian packages using the dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot command. This produced the debian packages I needed to install. To save some time, you can download the deb's that I created for version 3.4.4. You will need to installed the dspam-mysql_3.4.4-1_i386.deb & libdspam6-mysql_3.4.4-1_i386.deb files.

Next you'll need to setup the mysql database (if your using mysql that is). Create a database and give a user the proper access to the database. Then, import mysql_objects-4.1.sql into the database to create the table structure.

Now, edit the /etc/dspam/dspam.conf file and change the TrustedDeliveryAgent option to "/usr/sbin/exim4". You will also need trust the Debian-exim user to run dspam. You will find a few lines of "Trustusername" in the file, add a line for Debian-exim. Also provide the database details for the mysql server in the proper location. In debian the mysql.sock file is located in /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

The final thing you'll need to setup is exim itself. You can do so by editing the /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template file and adding the following routers and transports. It is important to add these in the right locations in the file. For the router add the following after the userforward router (and right before procmail):

dspam_router:

   no_verify

   check_local_user

   # When to scan a message :

   # - it isn't already flagged as spam from Spamassassin

   # - it isn't already flagged as spam from DSPAM

   # - it isn't already scanned

   # - it isn't local

   # - it isn't from one internal domain user to another

   # - it is less than 512k in size

   condition   = "${if and { 

                           {!def:h_X-Spam-Flag:} 

                           {!def:h_X-FILTER-DSPAM:} 

                           {!eq {$received_protocol}{local}} 

                           { < = {$message_size}{512k}} 

                           }

                           {1}{0}}"

   headers_add  = "X-FILTER-DSPAM: by $primary_hostname on $tod_full"

   driver       = accept

   transport    = dspam_spamcheck

   # Which users to run dspam for.

   #local_parts = /usr/local/etc/exim/dspam-testers

dspam_addspam_router:

 driver            = accept

 local_part_prefix = spam-

 transport         = dspam_addspam

dspam_falsepositive_router:

 driver            = accept

 local_part_prefix = nospam-

 transport         = dspam_falsepositive

Add the transports to the file after the "begin transports" line:

dspam_spamcheck:

 driver = pipe

 command = "/usr/bin/dspam --deliver=innocent --user ${lc:$local_part} -f '$sender_address' %u"

 home_directory = "/tmp"

 current_directory = "/tmp"

 user = Debian-exim

 group = Debian-exim

 log_output = true

 return_fail_output = true

 return_path_add = false

 message_prefix =

 message_suffix =

dspam_addspam:

 driver = pipe

 command = "/usr/bin/dspam --class=spam --source=error --user ${lc:$local_part} -f '$sender_address' %u"

 home_directory = "/tmp"

 current_directory = "/tmp"

 user = Debian-exim

 group = Debian-exim

 log_output = true

 return_fail_output = true

 return_path_add = false

 message_prefix =

 message_suffix =

dspam_falsepositive:

 driver = pipe

 command = "/usr/bin/dspam --class=innocent --source=error --deliver=innocent,spam --user ${lc:$local_part} -f '$sender_address' %u"

 home_directory = "/tmp"

 current_directory = "/tmp"

 user = Debian-exim

 group = Debian-exim

 log_output = true

 return_fail_output = true

 return_path_add = false

 message_prefix =

 message_suffix =

And that should do it. Run update-exim4.conf and restart exim with /etc/init.d/exim4 restart If all goes well everything should be set. A couple of notes however:

• Make sure the dc_use_split_config config option is set to false in the update-exim4.conf.conf file, or do the editing to the indvidual smaller config files of exim4.


• You may need to run chown -R Debian-exim.Debian-exim /var/spool/dspam to set the proper permissions for dspam+exim4

For more information on the above topics you may wish to check out the following pages:

• http://www.nuclearelephant.com/projects/dspam/


• http://alioth.debian.org/projects/pkg-dspam/

posted at: 18:47 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I was talking with hurt a while ago about image viewers and I mentioned how I wish there was a good viewer that supported matching images by content (to find duplicates and such). He pointed me in the direction of gqview and now I'm hooked. It's perfect for sorting through large numbers of images and is setup just right with hotkeys and everything to make life easy. The image matching stuff is working great too and seems to be doing a good job of finding the right matches. It's alot faster than the eterm window and qiv for sorting images :)

posted at: 20:23 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

Was reading the debian weekly news today and noticed this great project called DebBlue. The aim is to create a nice consistent set of debian themes to make everything look uniform (grub,bootsplash,gdm,gnome). I think it's a great idea and the theme looks quite nice.

posted at: 15:29 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

Well I had some reasonable success with setting up nascar 2003 in linux under cedega. It seems to work pretty well and I managed to get my wheel and pedals all working as well. No force feedback but it does do the center spring which makes it not so bad. I also got Command and Conquer Generals working very well without any effort. I've decided to stop playing with it for a while as it's eating up to much of my time dicking around with it :)

posted at: 18:20 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I have the new nvidia card all setup in linux now, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed so far. The performance is a giant improvement. I was getting about 2000 fps with glxgears with the radeon 8500, and I'm getting about 5700 fps with this new nvidia FX5900XT card. I loaded up warcraft 3 which I had installed last night. It was unplayable on the radeon and took me a while just to exit as the menuing system was so slow, but it's running full speed now and looks great. Gonna try out a few other games here shortly and see how they go...

posted at: 18:41 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I went and picked up the MSI GeForce FX5900XT-VTD128 128MB at lunch today since I'm an impulse buyer. I didn't have much time at lunch to do much of anything, but I did get it installed into the system and setup in windows at least. It seems to be working quite well and from what I can tell is crazy fast. (running unreal tournament 2003 at 1600x1200 didn't seem to be too much of a problem for it). I'll have to set it up in linux this evening and see if I can't get the cedega/winex thing setup and working properly with a few games at least. I was reading a review last night that showed the linux drivers are actually slightly faster than windows for the nvidia cards where as the linux drivers are about 30% slower than the windows drivers for the ati radeon cards.

posted at: 13:36 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I've been playing around with this winex/cedega thing here for a while now. At first things looked good, but I've yet to really get anything working with it. From what I can find it pretty much all boils down to this ATI card as being the problem. There are lots of issues reported with ati cards and many recommendations to go with nvidia. So I think that my next video card will end up being an nvidia chipset. The question now is, which one?

After doing a bit of searching I'm thinking about picking up the MSI GeForce FX5900XT-VTD128 128MB. This looks to be the best bang for the buck in the nvidia lineup right now. (from what I can see anyways) I found a pretty good review of the card over at FiringSquad.com. From the review the MSI card was also mentioned as the quitest of the FX5900XT's which is an added bonus for me as well. Now I just need to find some money :)

posted at: 01:43 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I subscribed to Transgaming today and got a copy of the new Cedega 4.0 release. I'll have to install it here later tonight if I have time and give it a go. I may end up having to buy a new 3d card for my computer as well depending on how well I can get the ATI Radeon 8500 I have working in linux. The last time I tried the ATI drivers they were pretty slow compared to the windows drivers. Hopefully that has changed or I might be forced to go nvidia instead. It sure would be nice to have access to all my games in linux and nuke away that pesky windows partition...

posted at: 19:47 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

Hurray! My system is back up and running with all my gtk based apps. KDE was starting to get on my nerves a bit, although it was alot better once I figured out how to make the clipboard work like a normal unix clipboard. (when I select text with the mouse, I shouldn't need to do anything else to copy it). But all is well again on my desktop now.

posted at: 12:34 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry

I just found out about this package the other day while hanging about in #debian (irc.debian.org). After you install the package apt-get install apt-listbugs it will prompt you when doing upgrades and list any critical bugs in the packages you are about to update. Which in sid, can be a very handy thing :)

Also if your running testing or stable you can install reportbug which I believe does the same thing.

posted at: 10:25 | path: /debian | permanent link to this entry