the boredom of ramfree17

Day 3.

Starting up the laptop again to try my luck in getting wireless and wired connections working side by side. My laptop is now a permanent resident of the living room that it is so sad.

Every sign still point to the same effects: no wireless connection, missing wlan0 device during startup, lots of errors about a thousand things during shutdown but I guess I can skip them for now.

I tried reading materials on the web specifically on the Arch Linux site as I like the way information are posted there. I can’t find any stuff that seems applicable to what I am experiencing. I tried restarting a couple of times but I am still stuck. And twice the shutdown got stuck literally.

I tried shutting down eth0 again and the keyboard input went nuts again and stopped responding. I tried rebooting using the touchpad and was able to get out of X then everything went blank. I am missing my toothpick today so I just took a pen and did a hard reset.

Next step I did was to uninstall mandi which I read does the hotplugging of network devices. I am not sure of the impact but I am getting desperate and I want to isolate where the problem really is. Bye-bye mandi service which took out two other mandi package which I am assuming is for the ethernet and wireless connections. The Windows habit kicks in and I rebooted to make sure all changes are in.

After the reboot (and the message that wlan is missing), I am back into KDE. I tried reconfiguring the Wireless connection, and it was able to connect and get an IP address. I was already smiling then I made the unthinkable: the Yes option was selected in the screen asking if I want the connection to start at boot. That effectively killed the wireless connection.

I tried bringing down eth0 to test the effect of gutting the mandi service out and then I lost my keyboard input again. Ballpoint pen to the rescue, and now I am typing this in Windows in a wireless connection.

From what I can see right now I have two options:

1. Post this problem in the Mandriva Users Board and wait two days for some suggestion on how to fix this problem, or
2. Reinstall another distribution. I already have finished downloading the latest Arch release and have it burned into a CD.

Hmmn, one is for patience and the other is for another adventure. I think I will go for the first option first and see if I can learn something new in return.

Since this might be the end of this series, at least MDV2008 gave me something good that I haven’t experienced before: the scroll button on the touchpad works out of the box. Even Windows can’t make that work.

ciao!

Tags: FLOSS by Erin
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Last night I decided to continue digging around the problems I had with my spanking new Mandriva 2008 installation. Booting my laptop shows that the wlan0 device is still missing during network initialization. This is going to be a problem so I lug my laptop and power brick to the living room so I can have a wired connection to help solve the problem.

I am assuming that the problem is somehow related to the way the wireless connection is being brought up. I read some information about ndiswrapper and iwconfig and decided to do some tinkering. I decided to shutoff the wired connection to better know when I finally get my wireless connection working. This is when the proverbial s#17 hits the proverbial fan.

Shocker of the night #1.

After clicking the system tray network utility to close down eth0 the processor then starts to do something. And then somewhere between something and nothing. Ten minutes and I still haven’t got anything and the menu windows has started to be rendered as blank squares.

Mouse works. I can move my pointer but the keyboard is dead. The capslock, numlock and scroll lock keys are not inducing any reaction. Since the mouse is still usable and I am in KDE then there is still a way out. I clicked on the K button, and proceeded to restart the laptop.

Shocker of the night #2.

Shutdown seems to work but stopped during the shutdown of the mandi service. My only option at this point is push the hard reset button with a toothpick. Exasperated and since the night is still early I decided to perform another clean install over my new Mandriva 2008 installation.

Installation #2.

Same drill. I just selected to reuse my partitions since I don’t want to mess with the partitioning. During the package selection I checked the manual package selection option (like always) and then proceeded to the next screen.

Shocker of the night #3.

The installer proceeded with the installation. What!?! Where did the manual selection screen go? I was thinking when I saw that the installation will take around an hour. I don’t want this selection as the default selection will consume about 90% of my root partition where my /usr resides. I think streamlining the packages afterwards is going to be far difficult than starting all over again. Out cames the toothpick to press the hard reset and restart the installation process.

Installation #3.

Same drill except the installer now hanged after the license screen. I waited 15 minutes before taking out the magic toothpick. Man, this toothpick is my McGyver’s all-around magic utility tonight.

Installation #4.

Same installation drill. I am beginning to hate the Mandriva 2008 installation background. No fiasco on the package selection and I would only need to wait 26 minutes for all selected packages to be installed. Neat. I think I spent more time than that during the past few attempts.

At the configuration page I decided to skip the configuration of the network. I figure to do it once the system is functioning. Restarted the Linux system twice just to be sure (I think I am developing an OC identity ).

Booted into KDE and then installed ndiswrapper which prompted the installation of other packages. I also installed the prism54 firmware that I have saved in /storage/packages/NoArch. After this I tried configuring the wireless connection first by using the Intersil Javelin drivers (prism54). At the end of the configuration wizard I still don’t have any wireless connection. The system can’t even list the wireless routers in the vicinity.

I fired up the network connection wizard again and selected the ndiswrapper option. This time the system is able to list the connections found in the apartment. I configured the parameters for our router that uses a WPA PSK. I still can’t get any connection. Just for the heck of it, I rebooted the machine and LO AND BEHOLD the dreaded error message is back informing me that the wlan0 driver is back.

Hell. I give up for now. If I don’t get my wireless connection up within the week then I am ditching Mandriva for now since my 2007.1 installer is in Manila. I will take this as a sign for me to try other distributions in this laptop.

Time to sleep.

ciao!

Tags: FLOSS, Garbage by Erin
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After almost a week of downloading it via torrent, I have finally finished downloading the latest and the greatest of Free DVD version of Mandriva Linux. The md5sum checks out so I off to burning it goes so I can begin installation on the following day (I still need to go to work!)

Machine: Fujitsu Siemens Amilo ProV7010, 3.0Ghz, 1.5GB. Code name: Lala (the laptop)

Installation _the first time_ was pretty painless. Mandriva was up and running within 30 minutes. I performed an install and reused my partitions, retaining only the contents of /home and /storage.

First problem: Wireless was not working.

No problemo as this already happened with 2007. Lugged my laptop in the shared living room and used a wired connection to connect to the Internet. Configured a DHCP connection using the network utility in the system tray. Did a quick visit to rpmfind.net to look for the prism54-firmware package. Download, open terminal, su to root , install firmware package. Disconnect wired connection.

Using the network utility in the system tray, I tried to configure a Wireless connection. I opted to use the Intersil Javelin driver instead ndiswrapper. Configuration was reported to be successful. Weirdly, there is no wireless connection.

Tried the network configuration utility again to redo the wireless connection. This time I opted to use the ndiswrapper route. Everything looks good. Along the way the wireless connection got connected and the system tray got the ! Yipee! At the last screen I was asked if I want to start the connection during startup. Oh yes! Press OK.

Network system tray popped with a red error message. No connection. Eyebrows began to meet. What the? Right-click on the system tray->Manage Wireless Connections, select wireless router that is a few feet of me. Laptop does something. After a few minutes still no connection. ifconfig, iwconfig , man. Nothing.

Open network system tray again. Do the wireless configuration again. Before the last screen I noticed that the system tray network utility reports a connection again. Do you want to start the connection at startup? Thanks but no thanks buddy. I selected no and dismissed the wizard.

Ok, so I now have a wireless connection. I lugged my laptop back to my room at the other end of the apartment. So far so good. Started up Mozilla Thunderbird to get my mail. Nothing happens. My accounts were recognized but my mails are not in the mailboxes!

Reboot to Windows to check. Goodie, my mails are still all there. I checked the Thunderbird version and they are the same: 2.0.0.6.

Rebooted to Mandriva, and then I got my second shock. During the network boot scripts, an error was shown that the wlan0 device is not available. Upon boot-up I did the trick with the network utility and all is fine again.

Time to sleep. I need to figure out what went wrong with the initialization part of the wireless boot up.

ciao!

Tags: FLOSS by Erin
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Today my webbrowsing with Firefox just got a little bit better since I stumbled upon the FasterFox extension. I have been reading here and there about tweaking the network configuration (hint: type about:config in the address bar) to get better network mileage when browsing but FasterFox brought everything under one roof. It provides 4 preset configurations ranging from default(non-optimized) to turbo-charged (increased webserver load) and an option to customize the settings to your liking.

 I only used the optimized preset and the difference was very noticeable. I am satisfied with that setting so I opted against trying the turbo-charged setting since that will just add to the webserver load for a few measly seconds. A few seconds is not enough justification for being greedy.

ciao!

Tags: FLOSS, Techology by Erin
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Existence of extra-terrestial browser has been confirmed when visitors from outer space left clues to what tool they use when surfing the intergalactic information super-highway…

http://lug.oregonstate.edu/gallery/firefox-crop-circle/mg_5491_1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DsHlev5Dg4

Credits to Ariz and Gideon for providing the links!

ciao!

Tags: FLOSS, Humor by Erin
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