me geek

List of all the drivers on your Linux installation.

2012-02-23T14:24:00.000+02:00

cd /lib/modules/2.6.18-128.1.OpenVA.2.0.1039/kernel/drivers/net

ls -1 *.ko | xargs -I{} modinfo {} | grep -e "description"

description: 3Com 3c59x/3c9xx ethernet driver

description: RealTek RTL-8139C+ series 10/100 PCI Ethernet driver

description: RealTek RTL-8139 Fast Ethernet driver

description: AceNIC/3C985/GA620 Gigabit Ethernet driver

description: AMD8111 based 10/100 Ethernet Controller. Driver Version 3.0.3

description: Broadcom 4400 10/100 PCI ethernet driver

.....

ls -1 *.ko | xargs -I{} modinfo {} | grep -e "description\|alias"

description: 3Com 3c59x/3c9xx ethernet driver

alias: pci:v000010B7d00009210sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias: pci:v000010B7d00009056sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias: pci:v000010B7d00001202sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias: pci:v000010B7d00001201sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias: pci:v000010B7d00009201sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias: pci:v000010B7d00004500sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias: pci:v000010B7d00006564sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias: pci:v000010B7d00006562sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias: pci:v000010B7d00006560sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias: pci:v000010B7d00005257sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias: pci:v000010B7d00005157sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias: pci:v000010B7d00005057sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

alias: pci:v000010B7d00005B57sv*sd*bc*sc*i*

....

This is an other way to do it for all your kernel modules

modprobe -l | sed -e "s:$/.*/$::" - | sed -e "s/\.ko//" - | xargs -i{} modinfo {} | grep -e "description"

description: 3Com 3C359 Velocity XL Token Ring Adapter Driver

description: 3Com 3c574 series PCMCIA ethernet driver

description: 3Com 3c589 series PCMCIA ethernet driver

description: 3Com 3c59x/3c9xx ethernet driver

description: 3ware 9000 Storage Controller Linux Driver

description: 3ware Storage Controller Linux Driver

description: RealTek RTL-8139C+ series 10/100 PCI Ethernet driver

description: RealTek RTL-8139 Fast Ethernet driver

description: Dell PERC2, 2/Si, 3/Si, 3/Di, Adaptec Advanced Raid Products, HP NetRAID-4M, IBM ServeRAID & ICP SCSI driver

description: Abit uGuru Sensor device

.....

What are you going to do with all that. I don't know.

Aaron Nel

https://plus.google.com/u/0/117484568487416046905/posts

http://www.facebook.com/nelaaro

disabling FSPPS/2 Sentelic FingerSensingPad track pad.

2012-01-04T11:57:00.000+02:00

Linux help.

I created a script to disable the FSPPS/2 Sentelic FingerSensingPad track pad on my gigabyte Q1585n note book. The Sentelic FigerSensingPad is two sensitive, and I have a mouse. When I type I want to disable the track pad. The note book does not have a hardware button combination to disable the track pad.

So I wrote this script to switch states. Every time you run it it changes it from enabled to disabled. Run it again and it switches from disabled to enabled. I tested it on my Ubuntu 11.04 and my friends fedora 14. It should work on any Linux machine with xinput installed.

here is a link to a zipped file I uploaded to google docs.
tracpad.sh.tgz

to extract the archive

tar -xf ./tracpad.sh.tgz

to make it executable

chmod a+x ./tracpad.sh

to run it
./tracpad.sh

Here is the contents of the script. I use xinput. If you just want to use xinput to disable the touch pad or any thing else handled buy xinput read its man page.

#!/bin/bash
#
# Author: Aaron Nel
# Created: 23 12 2011

# This script disables and enables the track pad
# every time it is run it switches the state of the track pad
# Specfically the "FSPPS/2 Sentelic FingerSensingPad"

#test to see what state the tracpad is in
padE=`xinput --list-props "FSPPS/2 Sentelic FingerSensingPad" | grep "Device Enabled" | cut -f3`
#echo $padE

case $padE in
0)
xinput set-prop "FSPPS/2 Sentelic FingerSensingPad" "Device Enabled" 1
echo "device enabled"
;;
1)
xinput set-prop "FSPPS/2 Sentelic FingerSensingPad" "Device Enabled" 0
echo "device disabled"
;;
*)
echo "Error:"
echo "Device in an unknowen state"
echo "$padE"
;;

esac

If you are looking for more info or other solutions check out these links.

http://www.google.co.za/search?gcx=c&sourceid=chrome&client=ubuntu&channel=cs&ie=UTF-8&q=FSPPS%2F2+Sentelic+FingerSensingPad

How to configure the touch pad, to make it less sensitive and other nice tweaks.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1502560

The souceforge driver project page.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/fsp-lnxdrv/

TuxGarage: Tutorials, News, Troubleshooting: Run AWN / Dock in Natty Narwhal, instead of Gnome ...

2011-12-28T12:15:00.000+02:00

This how to is probably the best most versatile and useful way to get AWN running in Ubuntu Linux. It adds a session option at the log in screen. So you don't touch the default setup. It is also a look into a very powerful world. Creating your own custom sessions.

TuxGarage: Tutorials, News, Troubleshooting: Run AWN / Dock in Natty Narwhal, instead of Gnome ...: If you want to use Avant Window Navigator (AWN) or another dock instead of the default panels/launcher in Natty Narwhal, there are multiple ...

Reading the documentation in /usr/share/doc especially the .gz compressed files

2011-12-20T16:13:00.000+02:00

Have you ever wanted to read the the documentation in the /usr/share/doc directory. If you install

apache it makes it nice and easy to read all the documentation that comes with most Linux packages.

First install apache2

$ sudo apt-get install apache2 apache2-doc

apache2-doc is the special case here. It allows you to browse your documentation /usr/share/doc/ through your web browser. from

http://localhost/doc/

This does not work out right though. you need to change the configuration of apache to get it to decompress and show the *.gz files as plain text.

I posted on Stackoverflow to get a way to use the apache to show the content of *.gz documents in the /usr/share/doc/ directory. This is what was posted as possible solution.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5242106/apache-gz-gzip-content-handler-for-linux-documentation-usr-share-doc-and-local

Here are those instructions in brief. It tells apache how to deal with .gz files to process them as plain text and send them to the browser as plain text.

$ sudo a2enmod headers

$ sudo a2enmod deflate

$ gksu gedit /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default

Go to the bottom of the file and find the section with Alias /doc/ "user/share/doc/" and change it to look like this.

Alias /doc/ "/usr/share/doc/"

Options Indexes MultiViews FollowSymLinks

AllowOverride None

Order deny,allow

Deny from all

Allow from 127.0.0.0/255.0.0.0 ::1/128

AddEncoding gzip gz

ForceType text/plain

Header set Content-Encoding: gzip

$ sudo apache2ctl restart

Now you are done and can read your *nix documentation that comes with most packages.

stackexchange

2011-12-20T10:06:00.000+02:00

I use the internet, and Google mostly to answer questions I have. Some times when I get an answer I have been looking for I post about it on my blog / social media. I recently found my favorite sight for interacting with like minded individuals. You would have come across stack exchange on some of your Google searches as well.

The community is not made up of normal's, but exceptional people. Who are very knowledgeable in the areas they contribute. The technical areas of programming, Linux, security and and language. As a introvert I find my self clinking from question to the next to read all the different and interesting responses.
I spent some time answering questions as well.

how to copy an ubuntu install from one laptop to another http://askubuntu.com/questions/62340/how-to-copy-an-ubuntu-install-from-one-laptop-to-another/62383#62383

how are typical users expected to read the documentation in usr share doc http://askubuntu.com/questions/24072/how-are-typical-users-expected-to-read-the-documentation-in-usr-share-doc/29768#29768 with my answer http://askubuntu.com/a/29768/10998.

why do computers work in binary http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5165013/why-do-computers-work-in-binary/5167023#5167023

I highly recommend, using your Google account to create an account on stackexchange. To ask your technical questions here.

2011-02-18T15:28:00.000+02:00

Trying to get Firefox to accept my proxy setting in ubuntu 10.04. I don't know what else I could do.

Z formal systems specification tool and CZT

2008-09-03T15:29:00.004+02:00

I recently as part of a systems engineering course had to write a few system specification documents using the Z language. I now had to find a nice way to do this. The Community Z Tools at source forge provided the best and simplest way for me to get things done. They have integrated their tools in to jedit so that it would be very simple for them to get things working.

The instructions at source forge are not exactly straight forward. It seamed to me that I need to download the source and compile from source this is not the case. Just download the czt binary file form source forge and extract. The follow the instructions at http://czt.sourceforge.net/jedit/index.html ignoring the step to download and install the source. Every thing is include in the czt download.

The jedit tool also seams to be a quite useful tool worth a look.

Jawug, wug, and wireless equipment

2008-09-02T17:39:00.003+02:00

I recently decide to get involved with the South African Wireless Users Group. So I had to decide on what equipment to uses where and how I was going to connect. It was a really good learning experience. I now know a bit more about the wireless networks, the equipment and types of connections possible.

For equipment I found that Uniterm Direct had the best selection and devices. I will probably end up with an RB433, or RB411 device. The Mikrotik devices have a better routing software and are designed for extream conditions like out doors, or in relativly high heat. These mikrotik devices also allow for power of ethernet, so you can put in them in some really strange places, not have to worry to much about how to power them.

Most standarde wireless routres could do the same thing and a lot of people would use the linksys WRT54g series routers. Those are designed for indoor use and don't do well in your roof or out side in an antenna enclosure.

The only thing I was not sure about was signal quality, strength and my ability to connect to the high sites a round my house. The following articles helped me understand what was going on.
http://wireless.gumph.org/articles/longrangelink.html
and http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk722/tk809/technologies_tech_note09186a00801c12c2.shtml
and http://www.universalweb.com/CustomCablesUSA/Technical.html. This last one is particularly good at explaining the differences between the different low loss co-axial cables when using antenna.

Ubuntu Network manager, static interface setup, multiple profiles, no internet, no dns

2008-08-31T14:24:00.007+02:00

Recently I decided to experiment with the multiple profiles feature of the network manager provide by Ubuntu 8.04. I set up my lan network card with a static ip address so that I could manager port forwarding on my router specifically for my laptop.

I still wanted to be able to switch to the roaming mode provided by the network manager if I went to university or some where else. So I decide to save the set up in the network manager as a separate profile. I then saved other profile for the roaming modes on my wireless lan, and my cable lan interfaces.

After a restart I found that I could no longer get out on the internet after start up. I was not sure what the problem was. I could ping my router but nothing beyond my router. In checking my network manager set up I could see that where I used to have my router as a dns, I now had nothing.

So I add some dns servers saved the settings under my static profile and applied these setting buy clicking the green tick. Now every thing was working again. I could connect to the internet web pages would now load in firefox.

Again after a restart I found I had the same problem so I check my network manger and found that the settings were still there but were not applied. So I again choose the correct profile and applied the settings. This behaviour of being not being set up after a restart continued. It gets a little irritating having to go into network manager and apply setting after ever restart.

After reading around in fourums I found about about resov.conf resolvconf /etc/resolv.conf, /etc/resolvconf/interface-order and /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d/. I could see that in interface-order and ifconfig my cabled lan card was begin configured correctly at start. In the resolv.conf file no dns servers were configured at start up, having no dns server to resolve requests out to the internet I could not browse the web or send emails or any thing you would need to do.

To solve the problem of not being set up at start up open the /etc/resolveconf/resolv.conf.d/base as root in a text editor and add a dns server like your router or some other dns server. Read the man resolvconf to find out why. Redundancy here is a good thing, have it point to more then one dns server.

Simply place entries like "nameserver 127.0.0.1" or "nameserver #your router#". Obviously 127.0.0.1 is localhost and probably wont work for the average set up. If your not sure what dns servers to use, ping a top level domain like www.com or www.co.za and get their ip address. Do a traceroute and look for domain names with .dns in them. You can see and example of how network manager saves one of these file in /etc/resolvconf/resolv.conf.d/original.

linux the cisco vpn and monash south africa

2008-08-28T00:38:00.004+02:00

I have spent quite a bit of time trying different options for the vpn connection to Monash South Africa. The open source vpnc dose not work because when importing the cisco profile it warns that IP tunnelling across TCP has been enabled. Which may cause undesired resualts, in this case it simply dose not work.

The only option left for linux is the cisco client which has not been updated since 2006. Major problem. Thus we now have to go to projects.tuxx-home.at. Here is the only way to get support for the cisco linux vpn client. There are instructions for intallation, patching and support forums. Every thing a person would need. I have used them on a number of different kernel builds, 2.6.18 -- 2.6.24. They all worked.

The vpn client on the web site dose not, but you still need to down load it to get the correct profile configuration file. It is called sa.pcf. You will need to copy that file to the cisco /etc/opt/cisco-vpnclient/Profiles/. Then all you need to do to start it is type "sudo vpnclient connect sa".
Enter your user name and password and every thing should work.

I have found some small issues with the gnome network manager and haveing both my lan network card and wireless network card enabled. So depending on how I am connecting to the internet I disable which ever one I am not using. Type "ifconfig" to find out which device to disable. Then type "ifcofig eth#" where # is the device number, some thing like 0 or 1.

Here is some more info on getting the cisco vpn working www.blog.arun-prabha.com/2008/05/01/cisco-vpn-installation-issue-with-ubuntu-804-hardy-heron/.

Problems in Ubuntu 8.04 LTS

2008-05-13T16:28:00.004+02:00

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. I found that after using it for about 20 minuites their were certain things I could do that would totally crash the whole system. Later I found that it was a bug in the released kernel, check https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/188226.

It has to do with the cpu schedualer (Completely Fair Schedualer), not being configured properly for the desktop system. Their is already a way to fix it, but in requires over 100 mb of downloads to fix the problem. This will be a serrious problem to people who pay exhorbitant rates for internet access.

The basic solution is to update your system to an the latest development release kernel. From 2.6.24-16-generic t0 2.6.24-17-generic. Caution this 2.6.24-17-generic kernel
is a developmental release used for testing changes and bug fixes, it is not the same as the release version kernel. This new kernel will only be released 2008-07-01 it the next version of hardy, ubuntu-8.04.1.

Any way I upgraded to ensure that I have a Linux desktop that dose not stall any time I open two many windows or try to do thing as a different users, ie every time i use the sudo command to do some thing cpu intensive.

Fix
Using synaptic
Open Synaptic > Settings > Repositories
Go to the updates tab and select Pre-released updates ( hardy proposed)
Close the window and reload the package information.
Either navigate through the Base System Section or search to find
linux-image-2.6.24-17-generic
linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-17-generic
Select both packages.
If you are using an nvidia graphics card you will need to also up grade it. Serach for
nvidia-glx-new - we want the version that matches our kernel, 169.12+2.6.24.12-17.36 instead of the old one 169.12+2.6.24.12-16.36 notice that the 12-16 / 12- 17 referes to the version of kernel supported. This should automatically include the
linux-restricted-modules-2.6.24-17-generic. Which include the binary / compiled modules necessary for the nvidia driver to work.
This should be all the updates that you need to fix the problem with out a major difficulty.
Next click apply and wait.
When it finished be sure to disable the Pre-released updates ( hardy proposed)
Synaptic > Settings > Repositories
Go to the updates Tab and select Pre-released updates ( hardy proposed)
And reload the package lists.

That should fix the problem, all this is described in the bug report check https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/188226. It also includes instructions on how to compile the kernel form source with the correct options. For more advanced users. This would probable save people form having to download a whole new kernel, and graphics card drivers.

mips and spim materials to help you get started.

2008-04-18T13:59:00.003+02:00

Here is a link to a full text book on the mips processor.
http://www.comms.scitech.susx.ac.uk/fft/programming/R4400_Uman_book_Ed2.pdf
You will not need to read the whole text book, but it will come in very hand if you are struggling with MIPS. Choose what you read out of this text book.

I found it at the following site http://2020ok.com/. Here you may find some other useful books on a range of other computer related topics.

Also check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIPS_architecture to get a better understanding of MIPS.

The official web site for spim is one of the best places to go and has a lot of extra resources, make user you visit this web site. http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~larus/spim.html.At the bottom of the page is a section on additional materials.

Lastly here is a link to a document I got of the net and cant remember where. I found it gave a good overview of all the very basics and is an excellent reference when writing simple MIPS programs. http://www.scribd.com/doc/2576056/SPIM

ffmpeg

2008-03-23T11:57:00.006+02:00

I spent close to 2 days trying to get around a problem with ffmpeg
Input #0, flv, from 'tmp.flv':
Duration: 01:43:15.8, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 64 kb/s
Stream #0.0: Video: flv, yuv420p, 320x240, 29.97 tb(r)
Stream #0.1: Audio: mp3, 22050 Hz, mono, 64 kb/s
Output #0, mp4, to 'tmp.mp4':
Stream #0.0: Video: mpeg4, yuv420p, 320x240, q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 29.97 tb(c)
Stream #0.1: Audio: 0x0000, 22050 Hz, mono, 64 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
Stream #0.1 -> #0.1
Unsupported codec for output stream #0.1

Which is basically saying that it dose not know how to take the audio input codec mp3 and produce and audio out put codec.

I tried to used the -acodec option to force output to mp3. Which as far as I understand I don't need to do as mp4 has both an mp4 video codec and audio codec.

The only site I found useful information on all in one place was http://howto-pages.org/ffmpeg/.
It describes how to compile from source and enable the different lib's required. I still found this site much more helpfull then the mailing lists that keep popping up in google searches.

This can be used as a work around for the mp3 encoding problem which I found at the ubuntu forums
ffmpeg -i inputfile.flv -acodec copy -vcodec mpeg4 outputfile.mp4

Whats important here is the -acodec copy, I dont know what the quality of the output will be like but at least it dose not bomb out in an error.

I found the quality to be good, not great just good. I lost some video information. The sound was great, no distortion or delay. The file size shrank close to 20%. I think that -sameq option could improve things but my file sise more then doubles. Which gets me great out put. I am going to experiment to try and get a better result.

Another day, another cable

2007-10-18T21:16:00.000+02:00

Another day, another cable

This article provides some interesting incites to why we pay so much for so little in South Africa when it come to the internet.

vlc segmentation fault

2007-10-02T11:54:00.001+02:00

I recently had problems with vlc media player. It would crash unexpectedly when running. It would not start when run from the Applications > Sound & Video > VLC. Occasionally it would start up but it would look terrible, or start two player interfaces. I then turned to the console using vlc, or wxvlc to get it to run. Some times it would come out with two player interface's, and whole string of exceptions.

Solution

in your home directory /home/yourhome/ their is a config directory for vlc called .vlc /home/yourhome/.vlc go and delete it completely. VLC automatically creates it when it is frist started. This will reset all the settings that could cause this type of problem.
rm /home/[you home dir]/.vlc

Immediately after doing that I tryied vlc from the application menu and it worked. I expect that I am not the only one to have this problem. I hope it helps some one else out there.

Bauer-Power: Information is Power!

2007-09-25T02:30:00.000+02:00

Bauer-Power: Information is Power!

A really good video on how data recovery works. It was associated with 2 links to sites that have more info. http://myharddrivedied.com/presentations.html and web.forensicspeak.com. If any one is interested in finding out more about recovering data on a hard drive I recommend these sites. If you are interested in taking apart a hard drive go to the video above.

I also recomend going to http://www.cgsecurity.org/ it explains to linux tools for data recovery. I have used the one and it worked for me. I was able to recover from bad partion information. It has a number of links as well to site that could prove to be useful.

Coding Horror: Gigabyte: Decimal vs. Binary

2007-09-15T01:03:00.000+02:00

Coding Horror: Gigabyte: Decimal vs. Binary

This is an in depth look at why a 250 gb hard drive is a lot less then the advertised size.

Apache2 Documentation apache2-doc manuall problems

2007-09-08T02:37:00.001+02:00

For those of us who want to find out how to fix the problem of apache2-doc at http://localhost/manual/ giving us junk like this

URI: index.html.de Content-Language: de Content-type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 URI: index.html.en Content-Language: en Content-type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 URI: index.html.es Content-Language: es Content-type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 URI: index.html.fr Content-Language: fr Content-type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 URI: index.html.ja.euc-jp Content-Language: ja Content-type: text/html; charset=EUC-JP URI: index.html.ko.euc-kr Content-Language: ko Content-type: text/html; charset=EUC-KR URI: index.html.pt-br Content-Language: pt-br Content-type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1.

Which is a type map, which is meant to allow for multiple languages in the documentation. It dose not work so to fix it try the following at this link.Apache2 Documentation doesn't work - Ubuntu Forums.

I changed these instructions a bit by
sudo mkdir typemaps
and
sudo mv *.html to ./typemaps/
which moved the all the *.html type map pages to the typemaps dir. so if I need to restore them I can. you could also just delete them with
sudo rm -f *.html
but then you have no way of retrieving them. This post dose not contain any documentation on modifying the /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file.

You may have to repeat the above instructions in some of the /usr/share/doc/apache2-doc/manual/ sub directories, like: developer, faq, howto, misc, mod, rewrites, programs, platform, ssl, and vhosts. As the documentation links to them as well.

Away From Home, by Ame Haji Ame's

2007-08-03T06:14:00.000+02:00

This is a poem written by one of the students I tutored last semester. I think It is worth posting on my blog.

Away from home in a strange land.
Young people don't greet "Mambo?".
You don't greet strangers in this land.
No anymore "Salaam Alaykum" to everyone.
Here people judge you with your colour,
They don't judge you with your hair and finger nails.
No combing your hair is fashion in this land!
You can't walk alone as you do in Stone-Town streets.
The food is labelled 'Halal' for Muslims.
Drinking alcohol is not a sin but big business
Females smoke more than males in this strange land!

In this land, fish is more expensive than beef.
This land is not English, but they grow English tomatoes.
Here dates are more expensive than apples!
Spices are thirty times expensive in this land.

But good things are here:
People don't walk kilometres for water.
There is no power rationing in this land.
Houses have heaters and not coolers in this land

But money kills people each and everyday.
Innocent people die, criminals live in total happiness!
Crime rate is higher than inflation rate in this land!
Cars are the best transport than bicycles on this land.
Birds don't sing but shout on this strange land!
Cameras are everywhere, privacy is nowhere in this land.
Marriages are no more for the opposite, but for the same sex.
People care for things and not beings on this land.

This land is so strange, making you think of home always.
This land is strange, and has more strangers.
This is a land of fear, and is a land of dreams.

My land is the land of peace,
The land of spices, and not pieces.
My land is the land of people and not things.
My land is the only haven under the sun.

by Ame (A-Zu)

A good resource on how 2 on configure feisty

2007-07-19T01:19:00.000+02:00

This site http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Feisty has a complete how to guide on every thing you would want to configure in Ubuntu. It is defiantly worth a look at.

Contacts, Calandar back up on online server

2007-06-27T06:42:00.000+02:00

For a while now I have been looking for a way to sync my contacts, on my laptop and cell phone as well as my calendar. Scheduleworld.com provides a free way to do that.

It is compatible with Google's gmail, and gcal. So it provides an all in one solution. It also works with evolution mail client in Linux with a special plugin you can download.

All the information is on their web site. Check out these links to find out more.
http://www.estamos.de/projects/SyncML/Support.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=282408
http://www.scheduleworld.com/tg/syncmlInfo.jsp.

nvidia restricted binary drivers and settings

2007-06-07T04:07:00.000+02:00

I have found a really nice tool for setting up the xorg.conf and daul view. From the command line in Ubuntu type gksudo nvidia-settings. Up pops nvidias GUI tool for setting up your nvidia card and xorg.config.

Only it has problems, or at least I had problems. they relate to where some of the advanced nvidia settings are stored in a file called .nvidia-settings-rc. From your home directory type ls -a .nvidia-settings-rc. This file is basically used to initialize your graphics card at boot and is linked into the boot process through the init folder in /etc/rcX.d.

The problem I had with this file was that the permissions on it doesn't allow the program to rw access it and execute it. I may be wrong here. What I did to fix the problem was change the permissions from
user@user-machine:~$ ls -l .nvidia-settings-rc
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 1511 2007-06-06 18:33 .nvidia-settings-rc
to
user@user-machine:~$ ls -l .nvidia-settings-rc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 aaron aaron 1511 2007-06-06 18:33 .nvidia-settings-rc
with a chmod 755 .nvidia-settings-rc. now it probably dose not need the execute permissions some thing to experiment with but make sure it has the rw.
basically try:
$ chmod u=rw,g=rw,o=rw .nvidia-settings-rc
$ gksudo nvidia-settings.

I still get a lot of ERROR .... (no Display connection) messages on the command line but at least now it actually generates the xorg.conf file in the /etc/X11/ directory.

I'm not sure what the error messages mean or how to fix it. It has some thing to do with the advanced options of gamma, colour saturation. This can be fixed but I didn't find it necessary to. There is some discussion at the nvidia forums. Check out this thread http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=61396 it seams to have the most though discussion on fixing it.

Please post you comment on this if you have any solutions for the ERROR ... (no Display connection) problem.

Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn

2007-06-07T03:37:00.000+02:00

I am a real distro whore and have moved to yet another one. My favorite so far Ubuntu has always been on the top of the list of distros I wanted but with telkoms internet connection prices I have always chosen distros with more software then comes on the Ubuntu free cd.

I have used fedora 4, 5, and 6. I think that fedora gets a lot of free publicity because of Red Hat. It is no way near to the functionality and ease of use in the GUI that can be found in either suse or Ubuntu. I think any one who uses fedora just cause of it's relation to Red Hat should consider moving to suse or Ubuntu. I have only used these distros for desktop productivity, programing and web development. So as far as running a server is concerned I can't cant say which one is better.

I have used suse 9.2, 10, 10.1 and finally moved over to a complete Linux system one my acer travelmate 5623 with 10.2. I have to say that suse with yast make Life very easy. The GUI based install can be done buy any one and it is rpm based so all the red hat packages tend to be compatible. I have found it to be a little slow, and it has crashed on me relating to X windows problems. I have used the 3D desktop across two screens on suse with out much problems, although I prefer to use it with out desktop effects as it works better because Lap top and 19" dont have the same resolutions. Over all I am very happy with novels suse product. In terms of usability I have to say it is one of the easiest I have used.

I have installed Debian on an old Pentium 1 I had lying around. It was a pain, never got X to work so I never used the Gui. It was a pain to install, but then they aren't aim at making it easy to use they are aiming at making it stable so if X cant figure out what settings it is meant to have then it is doing what it was created to do be stable.

Now I have moved completely to Ubuntu. I was able to get a friend to download the dvd of 7.04 and this has so far been what I am looking for. I have struggled with X. Similar problems to that of Debian, the auto config is that automatic and requires some expert knowledge on how to set it up. But in general after googleing a bit I found the solutions I needed. For X and some other commonly tried advanced configurations such as visualization go to librenix. I also found that nvidia has made a graphical tool called nvidia-settings to solve most problems I will put my solution in a new post to make it easy to Google.

Ubuntu is faster then suse probably cause their generic kernel is using more i686 code and take better advantage of my SMP (symmetric muilt-processors, dual core). I have been playing with beryl and it is definitely hands down the best desktop effects product out there. More settings better features every thing is better. I still need to do some development on Ubuntu to get a better feel for it but so far it is exactly what I am looking for a LAMP system.

I understand them not including Java, adobe, and some other free but proprietary licensed software but once every thing is up and running all you need to do is enable the relevant repos through synaptic and you can easily download them. Synaptic comes close to yasts in that it allows you to add cd and dvd repos which make life a breeze. Synaptic though is not an all in one control panel like tool which is what yast is. I will stick with the way Ubuntu is laid out for the moment, though I might try to install yast a little later.

xorg and xserver issues in Linux ubuntu

2007-06-02T11:21:00.000+02:00

Dual monitor support in Linux seam lacking, so do tools to configure them. May be I not looking hard enough. I would have expected xorg to have written some nice GUI tools to configure the product.

Having to edit the xorg.config text file seams like a real waste of time, and is very confusing for new linux users. Do a search on google for xorg prolems and xserver problems there are just to many. Most come down the the automatic detection program / scripts not working. I dont have a problem with this cause there is just so much hard ware out their.

My suggestion for the the guys at xorg or who ever to create a nice gui front end for the xorg.config file with human understandable instructions on how to create a working conifg file. I will have a look into this my self when I have time. but in the mean time as I have now moved to ubuntu 7.04.

This link will suffice to help those wanting to create set up thier monitors for a dual view system http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=221174.
This one is for just after install isues https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FixVideoResolutionHowto.
Like if you get the famous xserver failed to start error after a new install or you have screen resolution problems.

Free online and downloadable books

2007-06-02T11:05:00.000+02:00

I am going to start of list of links for finding good free books to view on line or to down load. I will have a similar list as I have on the right hand side for ftp sites.

Good list of linux and open source materails as well as others. http://eo.yifan.net/users/k/aravind/olbooks.htm

Nesting the SQL COUNT() function in MAX(COUNT())

2007-05-28T05:44:00.000+02:00

EXPERT RESPONSE FROM: Rudy Limeback

QUESTION POSED ON: 23 June 2006

I am trying to run this query and I get an error:

SQL> select
2 * from member m
3 where m.username IN (select fg.username from filmography fg,
4 (select f.username,max(count(awards)) from filmography f
5 group by username,awards
6 having max(count(awards))
7 >0));
having max(count(awards))
*
ERROR at line 6:
ORA-00935: group function is nested too deeply

Please help me.

EXPERT RESPONSE

Okay, the error message is saying that you cannot nest functions like that.

It looks like all you want is the member with the most awards. Here's how I would do this in Oracle:

select username
, othercolumns
from member
where username in
( select username
from ( select username
from filmography
group
by username
order
by count(awards) desc
) as t
where rownum = 1
)

WHERE ROWNUM=1 is used to obtain the row which has the largest COUNT(AWARDS) in the innermost subquery.

I have seen many people struggled with this type of question at university now I have found a solution that works.

New ftp / mirror site every one should have a look at

2007-05-10T00:12:00.000+02:00

I just found this site while looking for local South African resources for open source distro's, and other open source product. This has to be one of the best sites that I have found ever. It has mirrors for Ubuntu, fedora, bsd, gentoo and a whole lot more. TENET Tertiary Education Network http://mirror.ac.za/

One of the best parts of this site is the local link to the MIT open course ware site. http://ocw.mirror.ac.za/. A brilliant place to read up on just about any thing from rocket science to management and psychology.
I will definitely be using this site a lot in the future.

here is a list of the links available
Mirror Description:
MIT Open Courseware
Course materials for a wide range of topics
PHP.NET Mirror
PHP is a server side scripting language for web devlopment
ProFTPD Mirror
Is a GNU open source mirror of the Pro FTP project which is ftp server software.
Mozilla Mirror
Blastwave Solaris FreewareMirror
GENTOO Linux Mirror
FreeBSD Mirror
Knoppix Linux
Ubuntu Mirror
Centos Mirror
Debian Mirror
Slackware Mirror
bio-mirror.net Mirror
Is a mirror of a database containing genetics research
OpenOffice Mirror
MySQL Mirror
CPAN Mirror
Comprehensive Perl archive network is a major resource for Perl programmers.
Fedora Mirror CTAN Mirror
Is a TEX mirror, TEX is a language / tool set for formating and structuring text for publishing web development and so on,
www.honeynet.org Mirror
Is a site focused on network security, they have a large library of network security related information.
Scientific Linux Mirror

how to load a file in xspim

2007-05-09T06:28:00.000+02:00

I am tutoring a class that teaches basic assembler using the mips architecture and spim. Im using linux so i got the source and compiled and installed it. I then began buy running xspim. What a pain no documentation enplaning any thing that I could make sense of. So here I am writing about how I got it to work.

This is how to load an assembler file and make sense of the first screen you see when you first run xspim.
start xspim buy typeing
#> xspim
at the comand line. or buy running it from the /usr/local/bin/xspim
#> /usr/local/bin/xspim
depending on your configuration.

The following window pops up.

The assembler you can see in the text segment part of the window doesn't run and out puts an error sayin
Instruction references undefined symbol at 0x00400014
jal 0x00000000 [main].
This code that is already loaded comes from the /usr/local/lib/exceptions.s file. It is the assembler code to load and run your file.

You can load your file buy clicking the load button in the middle part of the window. This is will open the following pop window.Input the file location relative to the root (/) directory ie as /home/#user/mips/my_file

click the assembly file button. You will see that the jal xxxxxxxx [main] command changes to reference your code at memory location xxxxxxxxx. which will be just after the load program code.
the jal xxxxxxxx [main] instruction is a jump and load instruction with the memory address and label [main] being the label. So you need to have a lable in your source code that contains a main label.
my_file looks like this
.text
main: addi $v0, $0, 5 # read into $t1
syscall
add $t1, $0, $v0
addi $t1, $t1, -32 # F -32
addi $t2, $0, 5
mult $t1, $t2 # (F -32) * 5 (mult before div)
mflo $t1
addi $t2, $0, 9
div $t1, $t2 # (F -32) * 5/9
mflo $t1
addi $v0, $0, 1 # print $t1
add $a0, $0, $t1
syscall
addi $v0, $0, 10 # exit
syscall

what's important here is th "main:" part of the code which will be where the jal xxxxxxxx [main] will jump to when running your assembler. Now you can step through your code and run it buy clicking the relevant buttons. You will notice that their args parameter references your mips file. You will need to edit your mips assembler file with an other program like gedit, or scite.

It took me a while to figure out how all this worked as the documentation dose not have a quick start tutorial or any thing like that. I hope this will be use full for some assembler hackers out there.

New kernel for suse 10.2

2007-04-15T00:47:00.000+02:00

I recently upgraded my suse kernel to suse to the one available in the update source that yast automatically adds. It fixed among other things the spdif out that my head phones jack into. Previously it didn't work although sound did and it played through the speaker built into my laptop.

It seams to be more responsive as well in gnome. If their are any other big changes I notice I will post about them as well.

Web standard & Web Scripting

2007-04-15T00:39:00.000+02:00

I have just found one of the best resources on web site development. It is mostly focused on clinent side scripting and has some of the best HTML, CSS and javascript tutorials I ever read in all the tutorials I have come across.

howtocreate.co.uk

If you want to understand cross browser compatibility or more precisely Microsoft and IEs standards incompatiblity. He has one of the most though articles describing Microsoft incompetent and deliberate no use of standards in rendering web content. This is one more reason to try an open source or other browser that dose. Like firefox or opera.

tut week 5

2007-04-08T04:39:00.000+02:00

Tut 5 for week five was on uml, not the most exciting tut. Im using a free open source uml molder in Linux.
opensuse 10.2 comes with umbrello. It has every thing you could think of for uml modeling. Well I know that I will do a lot of this in my assignment.

I didn't like the one tut question in which we had to try and recreate a uml diagram out of our text books. That seamed to basic for me but over all the tut was ok.

Tut 4 week 4

2007-03-27T09:24:00.000+02:00

Last weeks tut number 4 was for fit2001 was not very interesting, we used the time to ask questions in a group about the assignment. I think the assignment will be quite interesting. We spent quite a bit of time discussing it in the Group.

The session we had with the Lecture was quite quick it was only about 15 min. I sure we got all the info we need for the assignment.

tut 3

2007-03-27T08:57:00.000+02:00

I have not posted in while, tut 3 was a bit of a let down. We were supposed to listen to a pod cast with the creator of Basecamp, Jason Fried. It did not happen till after the tut. This is because the internet connection at Monash is controlled buy telkom (read below).

I went to the web site for base camp and did some wikipedia research on the topic. I think its quite an interesting product which was developed in a non traditional way. Similar to Many of the Google things which is release a beta, and keep in a beta state while the users interact with it and give feed back. They call this a gamma sate. It is rapid user centered development. As a good idea gets out their on the web and then the users get to decide how it looks and works.

Its interesting to see that their are other way of doing the same things, and with the internet we have not explored all of them.

Operating Systems and A new computer

2007-03-01T05:41:00.000+02:00

I recently got an new Acer travelmate 5623, as my previous HP nx9110 stoped working. According to HP it stoped working because of mother board ware and tear. Which would cost R 5000 to replace.

My new Acer came with vista as it was a R 1000 cheaper to go with vista over XP. Apparently Acer is not shipping their products with system disks. So I had to use my DVD writer to create an image of my system for back and install purposes. Good thing to, with in 2 days I had to reinstall vista to get around an annoying error message that kept coming up. It had to to with user profiles and the folders linked to them.

Vista gave me the a real shock when I saw that the system was using 600MB of ram from start up. So I set about changing some of the services and performance setting to see if I could change that. I prefer to at least 80 % of my ram free. I was only able to free up 200MB. So 40% of my ram is dedicated to just ruining my system.

I have had one trouble of another since I got vista. Their program compatibility system kinda works as I was able to install and use open office and FireFox. I could get it to work with PDFcreator, it just wouldn't let me install it.

Vista is a bit easier to use but that dose not account for more then half my ram disappearing. Gnome is just as easy use if not more and it only requires along with the Linux system about 220 MB on start up. Which is why I am now switching to opensuse 10.1.

I hope to do every thing this semester in Linux, and after trying out opensuse 10.1 on one of my external drives I have to say Linux is really impressing me. Novel has really done some thing impressive with suse. It is almost an replacement for Windows in terms of productivity and easy of use.

Almost a replacement but not quite. I have to manually install my Realtech 8111 network card and my Intel pro 3945 doesn't work probably. Linuxes big problem is still hard ware compatibility. Hardware manufactures are sticking to where the money is and at the moment that is with windows. The just don't put in the same effort to make hardware work with Linux.

Their are still solutions to all these problems but they are some times very complex. For instance to update the driver for my wireless card I have to download and separately install 5 different packages to get around the dependency hell in the Linux system.

I still plan to move to the more stable and efficient suse 10 .1 with Gnome as my desktop because I can Google my Linux problems and find a solution, but with windows I have to wait till some lackey at Microsoft puts out a security up date to fix my vista problems. I will and suggest any one wanting to go the vista route wait till SP1.

Cool flash Games

2007-02-28T04:45:00.000+02:00

Fishy

A cool flash game that can be use full for passing some time, or getting out of a late night working rut. Or just late night work. Don't play it 2 much.

In response to the comment I will add the following link to this post and to my links tab
www.freeonlinegames.com. It has a good variety of games and should cater to every taste. I suggest you try it out. I have already played a few, one of my favourites is thing thing.

FIT2001 week 1

2007-02-27T02:00:00.000+02:00

This is a new series of post for a subject I am doing at university. Its called system Analysis and Design. unit code Fit 2001.

This first week of uni is always chaos, as nothing seams to be ready when we arrive at campus. The lecture rooms haven't got equipment connected and we don't have tutorials. This week was different, we had a tutorial and no lecture.

It wasn't a full tutorial either as we didn't have the lecture we couldn't cover all of the course content. I expect the form next week things will be very different.

This course is a second year unit and will probably be a bit more work then last year. I think it will be very interesting as we will get more into systems theory. I am built for studding I really enjoy it and could probably study any thing but IT is where my passion is.

I hope next week will be different and more organized and that things will be working like the library and the new lecture and seminar rooms will be up and running.

2007-02-08T11:32:00.000+02:00

I have add a list of ftp site to my blog with will allow south Africans to easily get access to gnu software with out the traffic congestion of international sites. So they will be allot faster.

Most carry the same basic software but some have more then other be sure to check all of them out.

Thing you can find on the these websites are free software foundation software and all the latest Linux distros. You will need a braud band connection for the Linux distros but may be you know a friend who can do the downloading for you.

its a conspiracy

2007-02-08T11:07:00.000+02:00

I have been a way for a long time and I will tell you why.

There was first the talkom problem out lined below.

Then a computer problem. When I bought my last computer I search high and low to find the best and most reliable computer brand. I thought that was hp. It was priced 1000 more expensive for most of the same speck machines as other brands. I had heard a lot of good thing about hp.

I had it for a year it work fine. although it started to give problems with the power button. Then just as my warranty expired in January 2006 it completely bombed out. I have since returned it 3 time to have the same problem fixed. Then in December of this year i thought i was having the same problem.

Hp has now quoted me for 5000 mother replacement to fix the problem. Which as far as they can tell is just motherboard wear and tear. Not lighting or some thing serious just wear and tear. Let me remind you that i have only had this computer for 2 years and paid 11000 rand for it. Now it is written off.

I recommend that you should stay away for hp and choose a cheaper brand like acer or may be Toshiba. Which wont hurt as much when they break.

I say it must have been a conspiracy to keep me a way form computer and the www. I have spent almost all my time doing any thing but working with computer for about 2 1/2 months.

2006-12-07T01:33:00.000+02:00

This is what my Friend did to me, when I was 14. I will post a picture of him when I have one.
Were still friends, good friends but I needed to show every one what happens when your blind folded and near him. He hits you in the face and bam, You almost loose 2 of you teeth.
I have since had 2 root canals as 2 abscissas had formed in the roots of my teeth. I had the root canal with out any anaesthetic, becausethe nerves and blood vessels were dead.

Thanks to flickr.com I was able to post these photos.

Telkom

2006-12-07T01:02:00.000+02:00

Telkom is one big money hole, they make millions in profit but take over 3 weeks to respond to a fault report. They have a monopoly so they don't mind if they come out and repair your line 4 times in 2 months, because you have no other choice.

This is or was my current frustration. Over the past 2 months we have only had less then 1 months up time in terms of phone and Internet access. That is pathetic.

At least with Neotel things will change. Neotel will be Telkom competition in the South African and probably African Telecommunications industry. They also are know as SNO second national operator.

In SA they are busy creating a completely independent back bone infrastructure. Which means they will only need to shear or lease access on the last mile lines. The last mile lines are those that connect your house to a central Telkom exchange. This is good news as they will slowly be able to roll out last mile access while still providing land line based services. If you want more info check out their web site. www.neotel.co.za.

Author

2006-10-06T06:23:00.000+02:00

This topic will cover general information about my self, and will be updated from time to time.

Education

A high school level certificate, with Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Accounting, English, Africans, Computer Science. I Graduated in 2005 form The Kings School West Rand.
Some university, I'm finishing my first year in a double major. Application and Networks Development and Business Systems offered buy Monash university. I am currently studying at the South African Campus.

Travel

I have been on 3 different continents and In 3 different countries.

My first overseas trip was to Australia

My mother entire family live in Australia with the exception of her father

I then visited Zimbabwe

My mothers father lived in Zimbabwe

My second one was to Australia

Now my mothers entire family lived in Australia.

My third trip was to Australia

Another family visit

My fourth was to Canada

I was a Ginni pig in a Student exchange program between my high school and the Kelowna Christian School.

Interests

Computers.
Technology.
Globalisation.

2006-10-06T00:26:00.000+02:00

I cant win them all.

2006-10-06T00:20:00.000+02:00

do I have to say any thing.

I will post some serrious stuff later.

2006-10-06T00:16:00.000+02:00

Couldnt help my self did another one. I dont really know how I scored this high.

How geek am I?

2006-10-05T10:56:00.000+02:00

Answere

Thats right, what dose it mean, I dont know.
But as bill Gates says:
Be nice to Geeks,
You might end up,
working for one.

I thought I should add, that in the last IQ test I did, I scored 133 on tickle's web site see below.

I was compared to bill gates even though I hate monopolys and the way they exploit monopoly status. i respect admire the genius of bill in his ablity to make even more money on programing with such a bad product. yes there are products out their better then windows, take apple for instance.
This is first post on blog by now most people think im vain have nothing better do then moan about microsoft and brag about my iq well thats 2 bad cuz iqs dont really mean much any way.

Chech out these sites if you want to chech your iq
tickle
international high iq society
I only scored 127 on the IHIQ web site. so may be im not as clever as I thought.