Hardy Heron - B43 Broadcom Driver Setup on fresh install

Well, this is my first time fresh installing Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron on my Laptop. Before this, I used to upgrade my system from Gutsy to Hardy using update-manager. And without any problem, I got the wireless(which in hardy using b43 instead of bcm43xx) working without any need to do anything. Which mean, Upgrade --> Reboot --> And wireless is there and it's B43~!

But in another situation, I just do a Hardy Heron fresh install yesterday, not much problem in the installation process, which I manage to boot into the new system in about 20-30 minutes of installation process. All working fine without any major issue but then i realized that my Broadcom Wireless(b43) didnt light up. So I assume that my broadcom didnt working on fresh install.

Here is simple step I make to make this things work:

sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter

This command will install the fwcutter for latest b43 driver and load the firmware in installation process. Basically, Hardy suppose to include this things on installation, but somehow the b43-fwcutter sometimes doesnt work will all cards, so you really need to remove the default one and reinstall it back using above command. Hope this will help.

Ubuntu: Hardy and Active Directory easy step

On previous ubuntu release, to get connected to Active Directory need a lot of work to do. But in Hardy release, all this step has been simple as a new package name "likewise-open" is being uploaded into Hardy's repository. Likewine Open is an application to make Linux to Active Directory easier to setup. Only a few clicks needed in order to make your linux ubuntu to get connected to Active Directory.

Likewise Open enables Linux, Unix and Mac authentication on a Microsoft network using Active Directory. A user can now interactively log in to the Linux, Unix or Mac machine using Active Directory credentials, and can access any kerberized services that the non-Windows machine hosts.

taken from likewise-open website

I was really pleased with the action taken by ubuntu to include this package into official repository as this is an important application being used by a lot of ubuntu user in order to access Active Directory which previously need to be setup my intermediate linux user.

You can download the package name 'likewise-open' by using your apt-get service by using this command:

sudo apt-get install likewise-open

As now, everyone could do the setup easily. And no more worries to get the files needed from your Office Active Directory server. But if you have encounter some problem using the new package of 'likewise-open' feel free to launch a bug report in launchpad.

Ubuntu: Firefox-2 on hardy

I notice that the firefox 3 is still have some bugs. So here is the simple to this solution right now, "WAIT UNTIL THE FIREFOX HES BEEN OFFICIALLY RELEASE" . Why do you have to use the beta version? So mean while, please use the old Firefox 2.0. This step below will install you the previous version of firefox:

sudo apt-get install firefox-2

If somehow you still wanted to be a tester user to help firefox to improve and report the bugs in firefox 3, you can always use it by selecting at the "Application > Internet > Firefox 3" menu. So it's your choice.

Ubuntu: Kernel 2.6.25 on Hardy

Well, I've been playing and trying a new kernel stable release of 2.6.25 which is known to be compatible and will work on Ubuntu Hardy or any release. But as i'm using Hardy right now, so this tutorial will be on Hardy Heron environment. Well I strictly not recommend a beginner user to try this because this is not an official kernel for Hardy, so if anything goes wrong, you are the one who cause this(and me cuz writing this tutorial).

So I look on the www.kernel.org for a new stable release of 2.6.25 kernel and wonder if it can work with my new hardy heron. Here is the changes made in the new 2.6.25 kernel:

1. There are deeply invasive performance/scalability/latency fixes for CFS regressions (vs. 2.6.24) in the 2.6.25 tree. These fixes are too invasive to be ported to the 2.6.24 kernel without significant risk.

2. Many of the driver updates/new drivers in the kernel-ubuntu package are merged into upstream as of 2.6.25. (This is always true, but the smaller the delta against upstream the better on release day).

3. Fedora 9 is based on 2.6.25 which means that key RH kernel developers are aggressively working to get the feature and performance/scalability regressions vs. 2.6.18 & 22 fixed.

4. The kgdb patch will probably be merged at the start of the 2.6.26 cycle which means the delta vs. 2.6.25 kernel should be pretty manageable. This would be really valuable from an LTS ongoing perspective.

5. The RT patch will be better maintained (and smaller) against 2.6.25. (see #3)

6. Better virtualization and SELinux support (see #3).

Given the life-cycle of an LTS release (especially this one which will finally have a meaningful chance to enter the data center) these considerations are especially important.

Obviously 2.6.25 would have to be in addition to 2.6.24 for the Hardy 8.04 LTS release time-frame, but it does allow the aforementioned benefits to be propagated forward.

Taken from Ubuntu Brainstorm

So, if you are interested to try this new kernel on your ubuntu, please take note that if anything goes wrong, dont blame me or anyone as this is your decision to try this. By the way, take precautious step by not removing the standard hardy kernel which is 2.6.24 version to turn back if anything goes wrong.

Here we go~

• First of all, make sure your system has everything that a system need in order to compile a kernel. Please sudo apt-get the dependencies:

sudo apt-get install build-essential bin86 kernel-package libqt3-headers libqt3-mt-dev wget libncurses5 libncurses5-dev

• Then go into /usr/src directory

cd /usr/src

• Make yourself a root:

sudo -s

• Download the kernel from kernel.org and extract:

wget -c http://kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/linux-2.6.25.tar.bz2 && tar -xvjf linux-2.6.25.tar.bz2

• Remove the link to linux directory, and make a new link to the new kernel:

rm -rf linux && ln -s /usr/src/linux-2.6.25 linux && cd /usr/src/linux

• NOTE: If you need to patch your kernel, please patch it now before we proceed to the next step.
• Now import the current kernel config:

cp /boot/config-`uname -r` .config && make oldconfig

• Configure the kernel (I will only cover my way of compiling, there is several ways to do this, but this is how i do it)

make menuconfig

• Now it's time for us to build our kernel.
  

make-kpkg clean

• And continue with:

make-kpkg --initrd --revision=386 kernel_image kernel_headers modules_image

• Note that you can chage *386 with any name you like such as "k7" or "686"... Now It will take about 2-3 hours to compile the kernel, and maybe longer time for a slow cpu. Meanwhile waiting for the kernel to compile, you can enjoy watching movie or anything else.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

• Now we need to install the .deb package to our Ubuntu:

cd .. && dpkg -i linux*2.6.25*.deb

• And after installed, you need to reboot (if you are using nvidia, you will probably need to reinstall the driver again in order to make it work)

You can always revert back to the old kernel if you think the 2.6.25 is buggy by selecting your old kernel from the GRUB after POST. Now we will have a faster system after reboot. Hopefully you wont get any trouble when compiling the kernel. So enjoy using a new 2.6.25 kernel on Ubuntu Hardy Heron.

PS:- Some people will have trouble with no soud when first booting the kernel. You have to enable alsa on the 'make menuconfig' step and also enable Intel HDA Sound even if your card isnt Intel. This will make your sound work.

Ubuntu: Vmware Server On Hardy Heron

I've been looking for vmware on the repository for the whole day but could find it. There are still no vmware on hardy repo for sure. It's still not supported on Hardy. So here is a few tips on how to setup VMWARE:

• Download the source from http://www.vmware.com/download/server/
• Download the patch from Patch
• Now we could start installing the VMware on our new Hardy Heron.
• 1st Step: Extract the .tar file and go to the directory.

tar xvf VMware-server-1.0.4-56528.tar.gz
cd [Directory created when extract]

• 2nd Step: Run the installation.

sudo ./vmware-install.pl

• You will recieve an error like this. But that's normal.

include/asm/bitops_32.h:9:2: error: #error only can be included directly
make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only/common/cpuid.o]
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory \`/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.24-4-generic\’
make: *** [vmmon.ko] Error 2
make: Leaving directory \`/tmp/vmware-config2/vmmon-only\’
Unable to build the vmmon module.

• Then here come the patch to save your day.
• 3rd Step: Extract the patch and go to the directory.

tar xvf vmware-any-any-update115.tar
cd [directory created when extracting the patch]

• 4th Step: Run the runme.pl script and this will continue the installation and fix the previous problem.

sudo ./runme.pl

• Final Step: Now, we need to copy some files so that the vmware will run smooth without any problem.

sudo cp /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libpng12.so.0/
sudo cp /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 /usr/lib/vmware/lib/libgcc_s.so.1/

And now we have just finish installing our VMware Server edition on our brand new Ubuntu Hardy Heron. I hope this tutorial can help you to solve the problem.

Link to refer: aldeby | vmware | ubuntuforums.org

Ubuntu: Hardy Problem with Wireless (b43,iwl3945, madwifi etc)

I have been helping one of my fellow Ubuntu user from my neighbours country - Indonesia regarding his problem with Intel 3945 wireless chipset on Hardy Heron. Well, to be honest Intel chipset doesnt have any problem on the previous version of Ubuntu 7.10(Gutsy Gibbon). But the problem arise as in Hardy, the driver have change from ipw3945 to iwl3945.

Some people will have/encounter problems to setting up the intel chipset in order to make it work properly. Well, from my experience dealing with the problem(on helping my friend), there is a simple solution to this problem. There are several ways to solve this problem. And it will work on other chipset too including b43, madwifi and etc.

So here is the step to configure Intel 3945 Chipset on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron:

1. Open up terminal
2. Code : sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
3. Edit : Add at the end of the file "blacklist ipw3945" then save and exit. (You could use any text editor you like. I'm using gedit so that it could be more newbie friendly)
4. Then you need to edit the rules. Type : sudo gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
5. Then delete all lines related to wifi interface. Leave only line which define eth0 which refering to your wired interface(ethernet). Then save and exit.
6. Now we need to remove the modules: sudo rmmode iwl3945
7. And add the modules back: sudo modprobe iwl3945
8. Now to check either the wifi is working do: ifconfig
9. If you see a device called 'wlan0' and 'wmaster0' then it means your wireless is working. Please check your network manager applet for access point signal. But please make sure you do have access point nearby if not you wont see any signal in network manager.

So that's it. If you are using bcm43xx formerly on Gutsy, then change the iwl3945 to b43. And you'll see what i mean. I hope this will be helpful. If any problem occur, please leave me a message either by comments or emails. Thanks

Ubuntu: '.3gp' Files Won't Output Sound on Hardy Heron

I upgraded from Gutsy to Hardy couple of days ago, and it started good except for some minor problem which I always had from the previos version. Thank god my wireless got no problem at all to load on startup using b43 firmware driver which is still in experimental version during Hardy first boot.

But unluckily, I found out that VLC do not output any sound on .3gp files on hardy. I wonder what's the problem causing VLC to stop output the video's sound. So I open up terminal and try running the video by using terminal to look at the error message. Here is the error I got:

VLC media player 0.8.6e Janus
[00000366] pulse audio output error: Failed to connect to server: Connection refused
[00000366] pulse audio output error: Pulse initialization failed

So, obviously the problem is with the Pulse audio plugin which is being introduce into hardy release. I cannot find a better way to solve this problem at the moment.

For, all Hardy user who having the same problem may try to play your 3gp files by using realplayer 11 which can be download here. Realplayer 11 is the latest release from Realplayer.

How to install? First you need to "chmod +x RealPlayer11GOLD.bin" and then just run it with "./RealPlayer11GOLD.bin". And it will install on the default folder in /opt/real/realplayer/ . I hope this will solve your problem.

Ubuntu: ATI crash on hardy upgrade.

I just upgraded from gusty to hardy heron about 3 minutes ago. And I reboot my machine and hoping that my new hardy heron will load smoothly without any errors. And suddenly, my boot time took forever to load the login screen :(

I reboot my laptop back to it's original state and look for any reports regarding boot crash, and guess what? there's a lot of ATI user who encounter with the same problem as I had. Why?
Well, after doing some google and reading, I notice that ATI driver has change from restricted to envy, ao all you have to do in order to login to hardy, is resetting your driver(graphic) to universal(VESA).

How to change?

Simple, just boot into single mode, and do "sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg" and this will load the default xorg setting to your xorg.conf. It will replace "ATI" with "vesa" so that you could login into hardy and try installing ATI driver using envy.

Step to Install ATI driver on Hardy

• Open up terminal and update the aptitude: sudo apt-get update
• Install restricted driver application(normally already install by default, but in order we dont have, so better we try to install first): sudo apt-get install linux-restricted-modules-generic restricted-manager
• Install the driver from repo : sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx
• And load the driver : sudo depmod -a

-----------------------------------------------------------

• After setting up everything, no we need to configure xorg.conf to use fglrx instead of mesa. Open up xorg.conf and find Driver "mesa" and replace with Driver "fglrx".
• to make sure everything is set, run: sudo aticonfig --inital -f
• reboot in order the driver to make effect.
• after reboot, if you wanted to look either the driver work properly, use : fglrxinfo

Now everything is done, and good to go. So I dont think there is problem to setup your ATI card anymore. The step is veri simple and easy to follow, but in case you would like to use envy to install your ATI driver, please read tutorial here.

Gutsy Gibbon
Boot Time: 52 secs
upgrade : Not recorded

Hardy Heron
Boot Time: 40 secs
upgrade : 2 hours 15 mins (Update Manager)

Ubuntu: Hardy Heron Official Release Later Today

This is what I've been waiting for the last few months - Ubuntu 8.04 codename Hardy Heron Official Release. It's been a while since the LTS Ubuntu version comes out since Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake. So from the date given on the Ubuntu Website, the release should be on 24th April 2008 and it's today.

This Pictures taken from Jabz Gallery

So what do you expect from Hardy Heron Release?

Well this is the latest changes I've search on the net for past few days which is the most exciting things to give a try:

• Ubuntu LTS raises the bar on the linux desktop usage/experiences. This LTS version will include the latest stabil core products such as Mozilla Firefox 3(beta 5) which is Ubuntu is the first distribution to include it on an official release.
  
• It also has enchanced photo experience: F-spot with upgraded camera and phone recognition.
• Music sharing and download.
• Better video. The new Movie Player will have capabilities to browse youtube video on the fingertips and easier to share videos with the rest of the internet users.
• Clock and calendar enchancement to manage time across the globe with a single click to set, attend and receive alerts about appointments.
• Slick desktop: Ubuntu 8.04 LTS combines the latest GNOME applications with desktop visual effects, giving users a smoother, better-looking and more intuitive experience.

More over, I heard from one of my friend who has been using Hardy Heron beta release, the wubi application is a major changes on Ubuntu Installation. It's working great with windows currently(full support for Windows XP NTFS). What is wubi? - Wubi is an officially supported Ubuntu installer for Windows users that can bring you to the Linux world with a single click. Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other Windows application, in a simple and safe way.(taken from wubi official site).

So it's a great new release for Ubuntu Linux and I'm eager to be among the first person to have a try on the official release of Ubuntu Hardy Heron. Happy downloading later~!

Information Source:Ubuntu Official site | Ubuntu Forums | Fenris | Wubi Official Site |Mypapit's Blog

Ubuntu: Hardy look for Fenris :P

Here is the new Ubuntu Hardy Heron with Avant Window Manager screenshot. Nice huh, really cannot wait the final/stable release of the LTS version - Hardy Heron 8.04. and here is the screenshot and I post this things especially for Mac4Lin user like Fenris ~:)

From my friends review, the beta version still lack in some criteria which is not a major problem for a testing user. So far, no kernel panic reported from those(my friends) who give beta 2 release a try. And wubi rocks too~

P/S:- Here is some repo you need to change in order to get latest AWN binary from launchpad

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/reacocard-awn/ubuntu/ hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/reacocard-awn/ubuntu/ hardy main

• and run

sudo apt-get install avant-window-navigator-bzr awn-core-applets-bz