loading Ubuntu Linux on Clamshell iBook - part 2

The part 1 of this saga is here.

After a 256 MB SDRAM ordered from ebay.in arrived, installed xubuntu-desktop. But when it rebooted, it came up with gdm and gnome desktop by default. Looked pretty good. Went back to the login screen, chose Xfce, found the look to be similar, but some things like the volume control in the panel were missing. So, went back to the gnome desktop. Not too sluggish, pretty good, in fact. Installed various stuff like flash plugins for firefox mozilla-plugin-gnash and swfdec-mozilla, OpenOffice, etc, performance is good. Have to download flv files and play them with vlc or mplayer, since the swfdec has a CPU drinking problem playing flv flash players, does not refresh the screen. Hibernate is not supported in hardware, I think. Suspend works well. Have to disable the "Failed to suspend" message in GConf as mentioned in the help center. Battery life is perpetually shown as 40% in the Gnome panel applet. Must take a dekko at what can be done about that. But someone wants to buy the machine, so I may not get time to do that...

outgoing mails from Thunderbird to gmail - AVAST!

Outgoing mails were getting an error 5.7.0 Must issue a STARTTLS... though the TLS settings were set correctly. Googling found this page which gave the solution of disabling AVAST scanning of outgoing emails. On my system, Avast 4.8 Pro, in the Enhanced Interface (as against the Simple Interface) it was in Tasks -> Resident Protection (right-click) -> Properties (it gives a warning at this point) -> Internet Mail (with the Advanced configuration checkbox at the bottom checked) -> SMTP -> Scan outbound mail. Removed it, and SMTP started working again.

extigy check

I'd not mentioned that the Creative Extigy had gone bad before I got the Tascam US1641 in the Mandir. Checked it today with an adjustable power supply set to 12 V - it needs 12 V 1 amp - to see if the problem is only with the power supply. At first try, it seemed No go, well and truly dead. Then instead of the auto-detected drivers from XP, tried installing the creative drivers. Then the analog section seems to be working fine. Line in -84 dB noise floor or better, mic also good. The digital section seems to have packed up due to the high voltage from the bad power supply - burning smell when it is connected. SPDIF copper and optical, no sound heard in headphones tho the mixer has these inputs unmuted and turned up. Anyway, it'll do for mic PB recordings, that's a big plus.

adding cleartype

In Display properties, on the Appearance tab, Effects button: Select "Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts" check box, and then choose ClearType in the list.

Thunderbird migration

Migrating Thunderbbird to the Aspire 4530 was not so straightforward, since I'd made a bit of a mess while configuring it on saispace2. The mail files and the configuration were at two different places, and the settings had to be redone since the paths were different - E:\My Documents ... etc now instead of L:\Mozilla Thuderbird etc earlier.

1. Copied contents of L:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\Profiles and Local Folders to the new location in E:\
2. Copied contents of C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Thunderbird to same location
3. After starting Thunderbird, went to each account and changed the path to sig file and local folders.

New Acer laptop Aspire 4530

Migrating to the laptop to save power. Making a list of what I want installed on it, putting it all in a folder for easy installation. Used PING to create a backup image. Have not yet done any benchmarks except for audio. Though the Realtek HD audio has SPDIF out, the Line In is average: -73 dB noise floor and a drift of 0.054 sec in 30 minutes of recording. Not frame accurate, but at least better than the M-Audio MobilePro! Noise floor goes up considerably on using Mic Boost. Maybe I'll use the MobilePro for PB recordings?

loading Ubuntu Linux on Clamshell iBook - part 1

This will a long post.

The Clamshell iBook was hamstrung by non-availability of current browsers for MacOS 9. Loading MacOS X was not an option, with only 64 MB of RAM and no DVD drive. On an impulse, looked up Ubuntu, and found it had a PowerPC install supporting older machines with http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/hardy/release/ubuntu-8.04.1-alternate-powerpc.iso

First started the install using just the install-powerpc image, but this didn't work: it went on for 45 minutes before asking me for user info, then went on for 2 more hours or so before saying that the install failed. Probably due to the limited RAM, tho' the installer was in "Low memory mode".

Then tried the cli-expert-powerpc image. Chose the same partitioning scheme as before,
Guided - use full disk
It created a 180 MB swap
(#4 180 MB swap)

One problem with this install was that it did not ask for a username - it created username oem and added it to sudoers list. The message was that I could run oem-config-prepare and then oem-config to change the oem user to whatever name I wanted. But the latter did not work, probably because of the minimal install. So, manually added user using adduser and added to sudo list using the method given here

sudo usermod -a -G admin username

removing the oem user with the technique given here, userdel.

Sound started working by adding snd-powermac to the end of modules with

sudo nano /etc/modules

as given in the PowerPC FAQ.

glxinfo reports no accelerated video as of now, though tried some stunts with setting the driver to ati and so on.

The Mac keyboard has some mapping problems. Where is the Del key for Ctrl-Alt-Del ?! Also, only a single button on the track-pad, so middle-clicking is out. Possible solution is at http://linuxaleph.blogspot.com/2008/11/mapping-middle-click-to-keyboard-key.html

Actually none of the bugs given at the Low-Memory Install page afffected my install, particularly the bug #202959 did not happen for me on the PowerPC. It does show an error while booting,

PCI: Cannot allocate resource region 0 of device 0001:10:19.0

but the boot process continues.

Adding repositories by editing sources.list sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list was not so easy. The PowerPC builds were shifted to the ports servers, so finally found at http://ports.ubuntu.com/dists/hardy/
My sources.list file :

deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ hardy-security main restricted
deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ hardy-security main restricted
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ hardy-security universe
deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ hardy-security universe
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ hardy-security multiverse
deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ hardy-security multiverse
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ hardy main restricted
deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ hardy main restricted
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ hardy universe
deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ hardy universe
deb http://ports.ubuntu.com/ hardy multiverse
deb-src http://ports.ubuntu.com/ hardy multiverse

Installed IceWM using instructions from the Low-Memory Install page with

sudo aptitude install icewm iceconf icepref iceme icewm-themes

Tried installing xdm for auto-login, since gdm and kdm are resource-hungry. But then xdm doesn't have that feature! So, using the technique given here and here, putting startx at the end of .bashrc as

if [ $(tty) == "/dev/tty1" ]; then
startx
/sbin/halt
fi

Firefox and dillo work OK. Dillo is fast but doesn't render CSS. Firefox needs more RAM, swaps a lot. Ordered more RAM from ebay.in - PC-133 SDRAM "suitable for most P-III laptops". Actually need PC-66, I hope it works. With more RAM, might try installing xubuntu-desktop and other goodies.

saga of corrupt pst file

K's S had a corrupt pst file, not opening in Outlook. Googled and passed on the following gyan:

Techrepublic points to MS knowledgebase and says pst max filesize is 2 GB
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-1052339.html (BTW, the link is correct - it is techrepublic.com.com....)

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q197315
also says the same thing,
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q296088
mentions that it affects

• Microsoft Outlook 2000 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Outlook 2002 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Outlook 98 Standard Edition
• Microsoft Outlook 97 Standard Edition

Googling for 5 GB pst file, found
"I'd suggest using Mozilla Thunderbird on Windows to do the conversion. It creates MBOX files, and it's free. I've used it to migrate 5 GB of PST files to mail.app for my wife and myself."
from comments at http://www.davidalison.com/2008/05/outlook-pst-files-and-mac-conversion.html

According to http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1401989&page=12 last line,
"server side .pst tools don't support .pst files larger than 2gb. "
So there may have been some corruption if the file has gone through such tools.

Some more possibilities are listed in the comments of:
http://weblogs.asp.net/bleroy/archive/2007/06/27/outlook-pst-file-repair-tool.aspx
which say

• Don't use scanpst for > 2 GB
• Try opening in outlook 2007 (maybe you are using an even later version?)
• Try OutlookFix http://www.cimaware.com/main/products/outlookfix.php
  

Since this is paid sw, you could try thunderbird first, and later export back to outlook if necessary.

Resolution: Trying the Thunderbird stunt also did not work, many folders had junk characters and so on. It turned out that the file had become corrupted while being copied to the laptop. S went back to office, copied it again, this time it worked fine.

repairing dialup networking in XP

M had a problem connecting to Reliance using the USB dongle. Googled the error message 'Error 6 The handle is invalid.' and found the solution was a bit of voodoo from http://forums.practicallynetworked.com/showthread.php?t=6781:

1. Remove Modem driver from the Device Manager.

- Right click My Computer and select Properties.

- Click on Hardware, Device Manager. Click on + sign by modem, right click and
uninstall modem.

2. Delete the dial up connections and remove 3rd party RAS related
program if any.

3. Run the attached file to install RArepair.exe, then run RArepair.exe to
reinstall RAS components. Reboot.

4. Reinstall Modem driver and the 3rd party dial up program if it is
required by your ISP.

5. Recreate the dial up connection and check if the problem is resolved.


The exe file is also available on the forum page.

easy scheduled shutdown for windows

I wanted the equivalent of shutdown -h 3600 for windows, googled and found that it is shutdown -s -t 3600. And \System32\shutdown.exe shows a dialog box counting down the time to shutdown too. shutdown /? for more options...

M-Audio MobilePre USB

Unfortunately seems to be el-cheapo in results too. Has -72 dB of noise - comparable to a normal PC sound card, not like Pro or Semi-Pro cards which have at least -84 like the Darla (a discontinued product now at www.echoaudio.com ). But the real killer was lack of frame-accurate sampling. Drift of 0.3 sec in 30 minutes recording.

While doing the tests, played back drama CD with 13 tracks with the Marantz CD recorder (CDR 631)and recorded on saispace2 and sathya with the MobilePre and Darla cards respectively. The Darla recording synced with the CD audio captured using Cool Edit Pro's audio extraction, accurate to 0.02 sec over 70 minutes. The MobilePro had the 0.3 sec in 30 minutes.

"feedback destroyer in software"

This is a real boon.

HP Pavilion travails

M brought a HP Pavilion dv6000 - dv6402ca to be precise - to check if networking is OK. He runs WinXP on it, and not the pre-installed Vista, because he has some sw which won't work with Vista. Found that the network driver was not installed - nForce chipset. Since the wireless was working, thought it would be a ten minute job to download the driver, install it and check it. Little did I know....

First, the Broadcom Wifi refused to work with our Airport wireless network. After entering the SSID and WEP key, a simple "Repair" was enough to make the Compaq connect to it. Tried removing the earlier configured wireless network, retaining only our home network. No go. Finally tried a restart. Voila! Connected. So, try try try again, if you don't succeed, restart!

The nVidia driver was a hefty 50 MB download. Got the link from

http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-20336-hp-pavilion-dv6000-xp-drivers

Unfortunately, Windows downloaded a couple of updates, and I thought I could club both restarts together. So, ran the nVidia driver setup and chose not to restart immediately, ran the update installation, chose not to restart immediately, then restarted. But then the screen remained black after the initial XP splash screen. Back-light is seen, but no display.

Tried Safe mode: login screen comes up, but keyboard and trackpad are disabled! Keyboard only works in the initial boot menu. Even attaching a USB keyboard didn't help. Turned in for the night on that note.

Maybe in normal boot, the new driver might be making the external VGA the main screen, thought I, so tried it out today with an external monitor. That one too showed exactly the same display as the built-in LCD.

Is it a hardware problem? Tried booting with Knoppix. What I had was an older version from Linuxforu, 3.2. It booted fine the first time, but reported that it found BIOS Bug #81[000...000] - Later rebooting worked only in failsafe mode. Anyway, it seemed there was no hardware problem. But couldn't do any repair of the Windows install from there, since it was on NTFS and this version of Knoppix couldn't mount the drive though it made suitable fstab entries.

Next option was to try Windows XP recovery console using my XP disk. Administrator password? It turns out the default is blank! OK, but what do I do next? Tried chkdsk /r - it found some errors and corrected them, but on restart, the problem remained.

According to this thread, instead of recovery console, I should try the Windows repair method:

.... would probably recommend that you just do a setup-mode repair by booting from your Windows CD.

Skip the initial repair console option and choose to install Windows. When it says there is already a Windows, would you like to repair it?, that's the repair you want. It will run a full setup and keep your existing Windows configuration. This will mostly back you out to the service pack that is on your CD and so you'll need to reapply updates and service packs (except of course the
offending one.)

If the setup won't repair your existing Windows because your current service pack level is too far past your CD, you'll need to first build a "slipstreamed" CD with Win2K SP4 or XP SP2 integrated into it. The information to do this is widely available on the web, or post back if you need to and I'll give you details. You of course need another machine or a separate, clean Windows install with a CD-RW to make this....

OK, worked as advertised, except... it asked for my XP CD key and then asked for activation! Yikes. Tried options from RB both of whose CDs did not boot, finally got a volume licensed CD from P. At last. After another round of "repair", it finally came up.

Then I had to install the network driver. After that installation, still the Network Connections was empty! When in doubt, restart; so restarted. But the Wireless Adapter was shown as driver not loaded, and the ethernet adapter driver also was not loaded. Tried deleting the devices in device manager as per the trouble-shooting wizard's advice. Then rebooting with the Wireless adapter enabled, successfully detected both wireless and wired connections. ]

Phew!

Edit: And now the keyboard and trackpad work in Safe mode too.

setting up an Airport network with a PC

The old Airport Base station (graphite) needs a Mac for the configuration. Connected the base station and the iBook to a hub to which the ADSL router was also hooked up. Running the Airport Admin Utility, configured the Base station with appropriate ip address and so on, and enabled WEP. To make the PC connect, the WEP key has to be entered in hex: to get it in hex, one needs to go to the menu in the Airport Admin Utility and choose Network Equivalent Password. Once the hex key is entered in the PC, it connects just fine. This forum post which says XP requires 128 bit encryption is wrong. In my case, an added extra is an SSID which is not broadcast.

For setting up the connection, Network Connections -> Wireless Connection -> Properties -> Wireless Networks tab, add the SSID and the key. Once this is done, "Repair" option for the wireless connection makes it connect. In case a wired connection was active, the newly connected wireless connection may not be used as the gateway, a restart may be required.

posting with Wamcom Mozilla on the iBook

Now an Airport Base station is set up in the room and the Compaq connects wirelessly using WEP. This iBook doesn't have an Airport card, so it connects via ethernet to a hub.

Opera 6.03 has an issue with links not working: clicking on a link does not follow the hyperlink. Strange. Maybe a system problem? Will try the older Opera 5. Wamcom Mozilla - OK when it works, but crashes often. Like it crashed 5 minutes back going to the Apple website's Airport Extreme page! Error 2, and the computer needs to be restarted.

The blogger edit toolbar is seen, but in this browser, it's buggy - selecting some text and hitting any of the button makes all the text in the post disappear!

Edit: Got the Opera 6 from mac.oldapps.com Will try the Opera 5 version, later, maybe.

Edit: Opera 5 works. But javascript, rendering etc leave much to be desired. Mozilla seems the best of the lot.

posting from the iBook

All these days I thought the iBook's ethernet port was broken. K told me that it used to work just fine. Tried it out with different CAT5 cables, but still the router ethernet light did not glow. Then, googling for troubleshooting ethernet on Mac OS 9, found this page which guides users through the Internet Setup Assistant. Just went through the Assistant - a Wizard in Windows-speak - and "lo and behold" the connection works just fine. Revisited my old post to make the router dial out, and I'm in business. Maybe I'll hook up a hub or something to allow both laptops (iBook and Compaq) to be simultaneously online.

Edit: Since the IE5 on the iBook was not displaying the edit toolbar on Blogger, had to log in again on the PC to add the links. Will be installing better browsers soon.

Audition 3 mixer monitoring problem

Trying to record with Audition 3, came up against a monitoring issue. Even though the monitoring is set to "Always Input" as given in their knowledge base the result is as if "Smart Input" is selected: Can monitor only if the track is armed for recording. This is a major show-stopper for my technique of mixing down to a single stereo track. Also, the cues are not written to the wav files in Multitrack mode - only in Edit mode are the cues written to the wav files. So, my major USP for using Audition instead of Cubase goes down the drain. If the Yamaha AW4416 comes back, then maybe I can record in Edit mode with Audition. I'll post this issue with Adobe Support, let's see what happens.

Adobe Audition 3

Installed Adobe Audition 3 on the Mandir laptop. Audition records multitrack directly into the folder in which the session file is saved, similar to Cubase. But it silently dropped frames and finally stopped recording completely without any warnings when trying to record 6 tracks directly to the USB drive. Cubase gives a CPU meter and if it drops any frames, gives a dialog box and stops completely. Probably can record 1-2 tracks directly to the USB drive just like Cubase. Will activate and register Audition in a couple of days.

text find and replace replace

S prefers Inforapid's solution for text find and replace - lots of features, he says - also was probably turned off by the fact that Search and Replace requires .NET framework...

problem booting saispace2

There was some issue booting saispace2 last evening. Stopped at the Windows boot screen. Booting into Linux without any problem. Booted into Safe Mode - OK. Then tried Debug mode - froze while Yahoo messenger was logging in, and Adobe Flash plugin was trying to download an update. Tried the Enable Boot Logging mode - OK. Freed some more space on C drive after the recent updates - only 200 MB was free, made it to 1 GB free. Then booted normally, no problems.