Configuring Ubuntu

The good news: it was trivial to set up Ubuntu with my wireless printer (HP C7250), just as an HP JetDirect, using the HP Photosmart C7200 settings. Far easier than setting that up on my Fedora machine.

Alas, when I activated “Enhanced Desktop Settings” (I’ll go look this up), there was a popup to install the nVidia drivers. So, away it went … and down went my wireless connection for that machine. I deactivated the nVidia driver, but the wireless problem persisted. From the popup, I could see the list of local wireless networks, including mine, but the handshaking seemed to fail, with lines similar to the output here, that read “wifi0: invalid skb->cb magic (0×00000168, expected 0xf08a36a2)” (I’m copying from the link, since I didn’t save the output from my machine).

Although I back out the nVidia drivers, the problem remained, so I reinstalled Ubuntu on that machine. This has made me skittish about nVidia drivers, after having excellent experiences with nVidia and Linux. I wonder if there are similar problems with ATI graphics, which I have not used for quite a while. I’m starting to contemplate a new primary home machine, and will possible (likely?) switch to Ubuntu, although this type of issue is one that makes me appreciate the stability of Debian, and the argument against Ubuntu for being inadequately tested. I wonder how Fedora compares in this situation.

Starting with Rails

For reasons that seem mysterious, I have done no Rails development, although I’ve programmed in Ruby since mid-2000, and was at the 2003 Ruby Conference when DHH presented Rails. It’s not because of reluctance on my part, but simply because nearly all of my programming is done on back-end systems (i.e. server code). However, I now have two web applications that I’m going to start soon.

“New” Machines

Last weekend I “rebuilt” two computers. The first was a true rebuild, migrating components from one case (an Antec NSK 1650) to a smaller one (Antec Minuet), with the goal of this being a small form factor machine for the kids to use in the library/TV room.

The machine was formerly a home server, but most of its functionality had been superseded by large external hard drives and off-site backups. So rather than it just occupy closet space, it was revived as a desktop system for the kids to use for gaming and education.

The components are hardly cutting edge: Gigabyte 8I865GME motherboard, Intel Sempron 331 (2.66 GHz) CPU, 512 MB of memory (Crucial D400), with 1GB added (Kingston), a Seagate 320GB PATA hard drive, a Pioneer DVD-RW, and a 20″ Dell flat panel monitor.

Installation in the Minuet was a bit of a hassle. As with other SFF cases, there is little room, and cable management is problematic. But the components fit well, and the quality of the case was excellent.

I then installed Windows XP and Ubuntu in both machines, first Windows, since Linux is much better at being installed after Windows than the other way around.

Installation of Windows XP was the typical nuisance, between the complexity (tracking down and installing drivers for audio, video, and wireless networking), and the time consumed.

In contrast, installing Ubuntu was amazingly easy. While installing Windows on the second computer, and after starting the format of the hard drive, I went to the first computer and started installing Ubuntu. The only screen during the Ubuntu installation that took me a while was the one for partitioning the hard drive. Not being familiar with the option of automatic resizing, I chose to partition the hard drive manually, with my usual scheme of dividing the space evenly between Windows and Linux, and allotting twice the RAM size as swap space. That done, I then launched Ubuntu into installing the files, and went back to check on the Windows box.

Windows was about halfway done formatting the hard drive, so I soon went back to the first computer. Ubuntu was done installing the files, so I booted up, and saw the Grub menu, with the Windows installation added. I checked the Windows installation, then booted into Ubuntu. In short, as they say, “it just works”. An alert popped up about connecting to a local wireless network, so I chose mine, and that was the end of configuration of the machine.

I put the Edubuntu CD into the drive, and started the Ubuntu package manager, from the Add/Remove Programs item in the menu. Installation of new programs was trivial, and the Edubuntu CD was also found as a repository for new programs. My 11 year-old son (it was his computer) had a lot of fun for the rest of the day on his “new” computer, finding and installing dozens of games and educational programs and utilities.

The experience on the other machine was essentially identical: problematic to install and configure Windows, and trivial to install Ubuntu.

I’m been a long-time Red Hat and Fedora user, but based on this experience, it’s very probable that I’ll switch my primary home machine to Ubuntu or a derivative, likely Linux Mint, for the extended multimedia support. I may keep with Fedora at work, if only to maintain my familiarity with it, and also because multimedia support is not an issue.

Installation of Kenmore Disposer

My old disposer — an InSinkErator Badger 5 — of only 2 years of age, developed a maddening bunch of leaks the other day, after, I suspect, it was run with a fork or spoon having been dropped into it.

To replace it, I’d initially bought a Titan from Costco, a 3/4 HP unit, but then discovered that it had a standard plug. So instead I got the lower-end Sears Kenmore 3/4 HP disposer, which is obviously made by InSinkErator, being that only the color is different, a light tan instead of the Badger brown. The nice aspect of that is that the mount is the same, so the entire removal and installation process took about 20 minutes, which was much less than I estimated.

Sears is becoming more and more favored by me, especially for their tools, which continue to be of great quality, and much underestimated.

Cleanliness Is Next to Silence

My speakers died the other day, so when I was removing them from my main home computer, I noticed how dusty that area was, including the grill over the rear fan. The case is an Antec Sonata II, which is normally very quiet, but I’d recently noticed how loud it was. Not overbearingly loud, but much more noticable than the other Sonata II-based machine at home. I’d thought that the cause of the noise was that the power supply was aging, and began bracing myself for its demise.

So with a bit of idle time today, I shut it down and did a perfunctory cleaning. I didn’t remove the chassis air duct, nor the CPU fan, but with a never-used paintbrush and some compressed air, managed to clean nearly all the dust out.

After putting it back into operation, I was surprised at how quiet it is, back to how it was when it was built. Very nice.

Adding Hard Disk Drive to Dell

So, this was interesting (to me). I got a new hard disk drive at work, to expand the capacity of my primary machine there, which is a Dell. Here’s the play-by-play of the process:

1. Get a cup of tea.
2. Open the case. No tools necessary.
3. Take a sip of tea.
4. Get the new drive out of its packaging.
5. Pop the plastic drive holder out of the drive bay.
6. Take another sip of tea.
7. Put the drive into the plastic drive holder.
8. Slide the disk holder into the drive bay.
9. Attach the power and data cables.
10. Close the case.
11. Take another sip of tea.

So the entire process was probably no more than 10 minutes, and more likely, five. The cables were routed very well, and the interior of the Dell machine was very “clean”.

After reboot, the new hard drive was not displayed by dmesg, so after a bit of puzzlement, the machine was rebooted and I went into the BIOS, enabling all of the SATA ports. Alas, while that enabled the new hard drive, it also resulted in error messages about no device being found for the other SATA ports, enabled but without a device. From the BIOS, it was not at all difficult to figure out which SATA ports were not occupied. I hadn’t looked closely at the motherboard to see if the ports were marked 0 through 3.

Setting up the new hard drive was simple: I partitioned it (fdisk /dev/sdb) into two partitions, created a filesystem on each (mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdb[12]) and mounted them as /Depot and /Files, following the design of GoboLinux (and to a lesser extent, OS X). Mounting was straightforward, adding the following lines to /etc/fstab:

        /dev/sdb1               /Depot                  ext3    defaults        1 2
        /dev/sdb2               /Files                  ext3    defaults        1 2

In comparison to LVM, I find the old way of managing drives and partitions easier, although with the disadvantage of having to migrate data, unless, as in my case here, when the partitions are not replacing any existing ones.

My work projects were moved to /Depot, which made sense to me, since they are no longer “hidden” in /home/jpace or under /usr/users/mycompany. Similarly, audio files were moved to /Files/Audio. I may add /Programs as the target for installing new software (including our own), instead of what I’ve been using, /opt.

Alternative Linux File System Hierarchy

The GoboLinux project looks interesting, in terms of their alternative file system hierarchy for Linux. As a long-term Linux user (10+ years), and Unix before that, I still do not grok where files should go. I view the home directory of a user as being private, so my common files (such as audio) as well as projects (work) do not seem to fit. I like the idea of /Files and /Depot directories, respectively for those two issues.

This may be pedantic, but it also seems that bin is wrong, in a conventional distribution, since those files are actually executables, not binary — many are scripts — and one would not think of putting true binary files, such as MP3s, in /usr/local/bin. That also raises the question — unsatisfactorily answered, to me — about what “local” means. Not shared? Not public?

I also like that Opera — my preferred browser — is included. It doesn’t seem that the bane of my favorite distribution, Fedora, is “fixed”, in that for example, proprietary (non-GPLed) codecs are included in the core distribution of GoboLinux.

The GoboLinux project seems to borrow from the design of the OS X file system hierarchy, which I’ve liked. I’d like to see programs filed according to the “domain” of their source, such as /Programs/org/apache/....

Ceiling Fans

I recently installed two ceiling fans, and found the definitive answer as to the direction the blades should turn. According to Hunter, in warm weather, use downward air flow, and in cold weather, upward. That (now) seems the most logical, but at one point I figured that in warm weather, one would want to draw the warm air up and “out of the way”. But according to the user’s guide (or whatever it’s called), in cold weather the upward “pull” of the fan will distribute warm air through the area, without causing a draft. And in warm weather, one wants the “breeze” caused by the fan.

Anyway. So there you have it, in case you were wondering.

Small Form Factor XP Machine

I built a new machine today, for a friend. It was spec’ed to be a decent gaming system, but also to be small. This was my first SFF machine, and I chose, as usual, an Antec case, the 1380, as my starting point. I like Antec cases, which are not flashy, nor are they very expensive, and their power supplies are usually very good.

On-board graphics sufficed, so I looked at ASUS and Gigabyte motherboards, finally settling on the ASUS M2A-VM. For AMD CPUs, I find Gigabyte to be the best price/value ratio, but the Gigabyte motherboard that I preferred was not in stock at the time that I ordered, so I went with ASUS, looking for AM2 compatibility in a low-cost MB, with good graphics and SATA support.

An AMD Athlon 64 X2 Windsor 4600+ (are the names long enough?) was chosen as the CPU, and the retail version includes a fan. The 1380 also includes a “card fan”, that is, a fan that occupies one of the card slots.

The drives are a Western Digital Caviar 320GB SATA hard drive, and a Lite-On DVD burner, also SATA. Despite the frailty of the cables and connectors, SATA is preferable because its cables are thinner, making for better cooling and less “mess”, especially important in a small case.

Memory is 2GB (2 x 1GB) Kingston DD2 667 (PC2 5300). I’m not a memory snob: Kingston, Crucial, etc., are good with me.

The build was fairly easy, despite the confining confines of the case. I went slowly and double-checked everything — this type of build is not one to be torn apart and rebuilt repeatedly. A small amount of configuring the BIOS was done, mainly some head-scratching when I tried to figure out how much memory to dedicate to onboard video. I left it at the automatically-chosen one, 128MB.

Video and sound are good, although there is some odd flickering when the machine boots up and launches Windows. Nothing horrendous, and it may be because of the archaic monitor, which is about 8 years old. (The monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. are not included in the build, and are used just for testing the machine and installing the OS.)

The OS was Windows XP. Unless someone really wants Vista, I steer them toward XP. And if they don’t care much about the OS, I’m more and more comfortable recommending Linux. But this was for gaming, and Windows is better for playing games. (Add your own snide comment here, as necessary.)

Despite the small size and stock fan, the noise level is minimal, about the same as what would be expected from the Sonata case. Performance was impressive, and “testing” the machine (playing Minesweeper for 30 minutes) showed no recurrence of the flickering video issue, so I’ve concluded that the problem is isolated to startup.

The machine is intended to be connected via an Ethernet cable, so a wireless card was not needed. Some new motherboards include built-in Wi-Fi, so I’m eager to see that functionality become more widespread.

Nice machine, and I’ll probably start evolving toward replacing/upgrading other machines with a similar build. The total hardware cost, including shipping, from newegg.com was approximately $370.

Linux Network Woes, Redux

Once again, the network connection failed on my Linux machine. No helpful error messages, no warnings … nothing of use to a prole like me. But a reboot “solved” the problem. Oddly, once again, my Windows box was a sanity check, as it continued to maintain the connection, even through resetting both the cable modem and the router.

Gads. Is Linux becoming more like (classic?) Windows, for better and for worse?