Microsoft tax

My original Acer Aspire One sadly died recently, so I decided to replace it with an Aspire One 753. I'm anticipating it's arrival. One of the reasons I bought the Aspire One originally was that it came with Linux installed. Unfortunately this is no longer an option (the Cromia isn't available here yet), so I began to investigate if it's possible to get a refund for Windows 7. The posts below show that it is -

Getting a Windows refund from Acer in the Netherlands
Windows tax refund for Acer notebook (Acer Aspire 1410/1810T)

but I don't have the patience to go through the difficult process. Whilst I'm not a Microsoft hater in general, their monopolistic practices have clearly left a legacy -  and sadly this time they will be taking a cut from me.

Fedora 14 on Acer Aspire One A150L

Problem 1
Old livecd-tools from Fedora 8, for Linpus, seem to create a syslinux.cfg that isn't compatible with the version of grub (?) used on the FC14 live image.

Result was this message at boot -

syntax error in syslinux.cfg

Work-around - use Windows based liveusb-creator.


Problem 2
During boot of Fedora from live usb image, the message below appears -

no root device found.
booting has failed, sleeping forever.

The problem in my case was the volume name of the USB drive (FAT32). The label had a space character in it ('P1I CARD'), which the liveusb-creator mapped in syslinux.cfg as 'P1I_CARD'.

I was able to resolve this by renaming the volume to 'USBDISK', and replacing all instances of 'P1I_CARD' in syslinux.cfg.

Install to hard disk
Having booted the live usb image, I used gparted to reduce the size of the linpus partition, and free up space for Fedora.

Next was to install Fedora into the free space and boot into Fedora.
I then copied lines from the linpus grub.conf into the new fedora grub.conf, such that I could dual boot.

This went smoothly, and Fedora is performing exceptionally well... just wish I'd made the upgrade sooner.

VirtualBox-3.1.2 upgrade on Aspire One Linux

I haven't posted for a long time... but just to show some activity, I'm posting regarding the latest VirtualBox upgrade.

On the VirtualBox download site, they haven't posted an RPM for Fedora 8... so I resorted to the 'All distributions' release http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.1.2/VirtualBox-3.1.2-56127-Linux_x86.run

The process was smooth and simple
- Remove the old RPM installation

sudo rpm -e VirtualBox-3.0.6_52128_fedora8-1

- Set the execute bit on the downloaded install file

chmod a+x VirtualBox-3.1.2-56127-Linux_x86.run

- Run it

[user@aspireone Downloads]$ sudo ./VirtualBox-3.1.2-56127-Linux_x86.run
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing VirtualBox for Linux installation.........
VirtualBox Version 3.1.2 r56127 (2009-12-17T13:37:07Z) installer
Installing VirtualBox to /opt/VirtualBox
Python found: python, installing bindings...
error: invalid Python installation: unable to open /usr/lib/python2.5/config/Makefile (No such file or directory)
Building the VirtualBox vboxdrv kernel module
Building the VirtualBox netflt kernel module
Building the VirtualBox netadp kernel module

VirtualBox has been installed successfully.

You will find useful information about using VirtualBox in the user manual
  /opt/VirtualBox/UserManual.pdf
and in the user FAQ
  http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/User_FAQ

We hope that you enjoy using VirtualBox.

I don't thing the python error message is anything to be concerned about.

Transcoding MJPEG to Xvid

Videos from the Canon IXUS 80 weren't playing properly for me either with VLC (Linux or XP) or Media Player.. so I thought I'd try transcoding them. It worked nicely.
See my earlier posts for the transcode install process.

Input file -
[user@aspireone ~]$ tcprobe -i MVI_2282.avi
[tcprobe] RIFF data, AVI video
[avilib] V: 30.000 fps, codec=MJPG, frames=7607, width=640, height=480
[avilib] A: 44100 Hz, format=0x01, bits=16, channels=1, bitrate=705 kbps,
[avilib] 254 chunks, 22364580 bytes, CBR
[tcprobe] summary for MVI_2282.avi, (*) = not default, 0 = not detected
import frame size: -g 640x480 [720x576] (*)
frame rate: -f 30.000 [25.000] frc=0 (*)
audio track: -a 0 [0] -e 44100,16,1 [48000,16,2] -n 0x1 [0x2000] (*)
bitrate=705 kbps
length: 7607 frames, frame_time=33 msec, duration=0:04:13.564

Transcode to Xvid -
transcode -i MVI_2282.avi -y xvid4 -o MVI_2282.xvid

Output file -
[user@aspireone ~]$ tcprobe -i MVI_2282.xvid
[tcprobe] RIFF data, AVI video
[avilib] V: 29.970 fps, codec=XVID, frames=7606, width=640, height=480
[avilib] A: 44100 Hz, format=0x55, bits=16, channels=1, bitrate=128 kbps,
[avilib] 7606 chunks, 4055761 bytes, CBR
[tcprobe] summary for MVI_2282.xvid, (*) = not default, 0 = not detected
import frame size: -g 640x480 [720x576] (*)
frame rate: -f 29.970 [25.000] frc=4 (*)
audio track: -a 0 [0] -e 44100,16,1 [48000,16,2] -n 0x55 [0x2000] (*)
bitrate=128 kbps
length: 7606 frames, frame_time=33 msec, duration=0:04:13.786

The other benefit -
[user@aspireone ~]$ du -h MVI_2282.*
435M MVI_2282.avi
59M MVI_2282.xvid

VirtualBox Bridged Mode on Linpus

I wanted to run TurnKey Tomcat in VirtualBox, and use bridged network mode to make the tomcat available on my LAN. Easy I thought...

The basics of setting preparing the host Linux environment I found this post.
However, the Linpus kernel doesn't have
- TUN/TAP support built in the kernel... so I turned to this post.
- Bridge support... so it was time to build my own kernel, for which I turned to this post.

I then discovered that Linpus has a custom build of Grub, that doesn't show a menu on boot... which was something of a problem, as my kernel, built with 'CONFIG_BRIGE=y" did not work properly - the mouse and keyboard didn't seem to work.

I hope to replace the Linpus grub with a more standard variety... but this I'll save for another post. I want to make sure I have a safe procedure for restoring the original version first.

On a side issue, I tried using
- Damn Small Linux (DSL) for recovery - but it hung whilst booting.
- RIPLinux - at first this didn't seem to work either... until I found that by first running it's hardware detection tool, and then running grub, it worked nicely. Strange incompatibility with the Aspire One I suspect.

For my kernel second build, I tried with bridge as a module, CONFIG_BRIGE=y. This worked nicely.

I then hit this error - VERR_SUPDRV_COMPONENT_NOT_FOUND which is easily resolved by modprobing, see this post.

Then, to my horror, I found that Linux bridging doesn't work on WIFI - see this post.

If anyone tries this procedure, and gets it to work, perhaps against a regular Ethernet port, I'd like to hear your experiences.

Using Sony Ericsson P1i as a GPRS/3G modem on Acer Aspire One

As I got the Aspire One just prior to travelling, I didn't have time to test using it for internet connectivity using my Sony Ericsson P1i as a GPRS modem. As I'm travelling again soon, I decided to iron out the process in advance.

First I tried using Windows XP running in VirtualBox, with the normal Sony Ericsson tools. This worked largely without any hitches.

On to Linux (Linpus Lite), using a post on bayan ni juan as a reference.

Here's how to do it -

Check to see that the phone is detected when you plug it in. You should see something like the following.

[user@localhost ~]$ dmesg
usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
cdc_acm 3-1:1.1: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
cdc_acm 3-1:1.3: ttyACM1: USB ACM device
cdc_acm 3-1:1.5: ttyACM2: USB ACM device
usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
drivers/usb/class/cdc-acm.c: v0.25:USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters

Check that wvdial is installed. It seems to come with the Aspire One.

[user@localhost ~]$ yum list wvdial
wvdial.i386 1.60-3.fc8 installed

Install gnome-ppp

[user@localhost ~]$ sudo yum install gnome-ppp
Installed: gnome-ppp.i386 0:0.3.23-4.fc8
Complete!

Run gnome-ppp -

[user@localhost ~]$ gnome-ppp

Unfortunately it needs to run as root to access the modem, so give the root password (or invoke via sudo).

Click Setup
Click "Detect" to detect the modem
It should find /dev/ttyACM1
Speed 460800

Add the phone number for GPRS *99#
Phone numbers, *99# (you can use *99***10# to use profile 10 from the phone. I have the phone setup for WAP etc already, so this seems to be unnecessary).

Under init strings, my operator Telia suggests AT+cgdcont=10,,"online.telia.se"
this seems to be unnecessary, perhaps for the same reason cited earlier.

All other settings I left unchanged.

Quit and re-run gnome-ppp (perhaps not required)

Give a Username (test)
Give a Password (test)
Check the box "Remember password"
This seems to be required to workaround a bug in gnome-ppp. Without the box checked, gnome-ppp doesn't respond to the wvdial prompt "Please enter password (or empty password to stop):" - it took me a while to figure this out :)

Press connect, and hopefully you'll get a connection, with IP address, DNS etc.

Alt Gr dead in java gui apps

Its time I blogged about a bug. This one isn't very interesting, but it is annoying. Internationalisation is one of those seemingly simple things that is so hard to get right, due to the huge combination of settings, and solutions.

Whilst trying to do some coding in Netbeans, I found the Alt Gr key not working on my Swedish/Finish keyboard. Pretty important as it gets you the { and } keys! What's so frustrating is that the keys are working perfectly in every other app I've used.

After checking this Netbeans article, I found the solution here in Ubuntu's bug tracker.

$ XMODIFIERS='' /opt/netbeans-6.1/bin/netbeans

VirtualBox on Acer Aspire One

I'd started to install VMware on my Aspire One (Linux), when I came across
macles* post on VirtualBox. In a couple of hours I had it up and running, with Windows XP as the guest OS, nice.

When reading about VirtualBox, the thing that excited me most was the support for USB devices - ie. it can 'pipe' them through to the guest OS, such that devices not supported in the host OS can be used in the guest OS... nice.

So I gave it a try - first was my HP Laserjet M1005 MFP, printer and scanner - no problems. Install the drivers (in XP), plug in the device, tell VirtualBox to enable it, XP detects it and out comes the test page. Similarly for the Scanner. Mounting ISO images of CDs (eg. install CDs) works beautifully too, something XP itself isn't so good at.

Then the Sony Ericsson P1i PC suite. This is a buggy thing to start with... I can no longer get it to install on my Vista work PC, how about XP under VirtualBox? Basically, no problems! I may have to run VirtualBox on my Vista laptop too :)

It's really nice when things work so well.

Converting videos to play on the Sony Ericsson P1i

All the playing around with transcoders for the Creative Zen got me thinking about watching videos on my Sony Ericsson P1i. It has roughly the same size and resolution screen as the Zen, although probably less colours, and a even more limited video player.

First I tried using transcode, but quickly learned that the P1i video player likes 3GP files, which use MPEG4/H.263/H.264 for video, and AMR/AAC for audio. Both of these codecs have license/patent issues, which means they aren't built into your usual rpm files.

I then found this blog post and was inspired to try using ffmpeg. The vanilla rpm on my aspire one didn't include aac/amr, so I gave source building a try.

Install SVN, and checkout the source for ffmpeg
sudo yum install svn
svn checkout svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg/trunk ffmpeg

Install amr and faac codecs
sudo yum install amrnb amrnb-devel
sudo yum install faac-devel

Configure and make ffmpeg
./configure --enable-libfaac --enable-libamr-nb --enable-nonfree
make

Convert avi file to 3gp
./ffmpeg -i /mnt/nas/somebody.avi -s qcif -vcodec h263 -acodec libfaac -ab 128000 -y somebody.3gp

Copy to phone, and play
cp somebody.3gp /media/PHONE\ CARD/video/

it works!
I found that the player couldn't handle resolutions other than qcif (176x144). More experimentation is required to see what else it can handle.

I've read that H.264 would be worth trying, and perhaps the audio rate I'm using is an overkill. This post also is interesting.

Still, I'm not that sure I actually want to watch video on the phone... so perhaps I'll just end here :)

Happy New Year!

Dependencies and video transcoding

Well it seems that I'd made one of the great Fedora no-nos and enable yum repositories for both livna and freshrpms.

This led to the problems below, whilst trying to install transcode -
ffmpeg-libs-0.4.9-0.42.20071121.lvn8.i386 from installed has depsolving problems
--> Missing Dependency: libx264.so.56 is needed by package ffmpeg-libs-0.4.9-0.42.20071121.lvn8.i386 (installed)
Error: Missing Dependency: libx264.so.56 is needed by package ffmpeg-libs-0.4.9-0.42.20071121.lvn8.i386 (installed)

I found an explanation here -
http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Fedora/2008-01/msg04547.html

And resolved it by disabling the livna repo, then -
[user@localhost ~]$ sudo yum erase ffmpeg-libs
This was installed from livna, and then re-install my video utilities from freshrpms -

[user@localhost ~]$ sudo yum install transcode
[user@localhost ~]$ sudo yum install dvdrip

[user@localhost ~]$ sudo yum erase libdvbpsi
[user@localhost ~]$ sudo yum install vlc

I was then able to reencode and resize videos for the Creative Zen as follows -

[user@localhost ~]$ transcode -i /mnt/nas/Music\ Videos/input.mpg -y xvid4 -o test.avi -Z 320x240 -w 768,100
(Transcode takes a plethora of options which probably need tweaking... that I'll try to get back to some time)

Connecting to the Creative Zen requires MTP (Media Transfer Protocol), so -

[user@localhost ~]$ sudo yum install libmtp libmtp-devel libmtp-examples

[user@localhost ~]$ mtp-sendfile test.avi test.avi

And surprisingly enough... it works!

Annoying touchpad?

Whilst workable, the touchpad on my Aspire one always seemed way too sensitive, and it would keep scrolling the screen when I didn't want it too.

Eventually I tired of it... went into the settings, reduced the sensitivity further, and disabled the scrolling function. Problems solved :)

Embarrassingly simple!

autofs #3

Ok, I weakened... again this isn't a pretty solution, and it seems NetworkManager is becoming my friend...

[user@localhost ~]$ cat /etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/03-autofs 
#!/bin/sh
if [ "$2" = "up" ]; then
 AUTOFS=/etc/init.d/autofs

 if [ ! -x $AUTOFS ]; then
    exit 0
 fi

 $AUTOFS start > /dev/null
fi

autofs #2

Well, I'm back from vacation... the Aspire One survived the journey well, it really is light and compact enough, that you can travel with it without noticing it. The biggest hassle was the lack of a 'global' WiFi network. In Amsterdam it costs you 10 euro's to log in... Melbourne down to $5, in Kuala Lumpur free. At cafe's and hotels a similar story, sometimes free, sometimes expensive... but you find yourself wondering is it worthwhile digging out the credit card. A 3G modem would in an ideal world avoid these hassles. In the real world, there's still the cost of global roaming, and the fact that UMTS hasn't yet completely replaced GSM. Occasionally you'll find yourself barely getting 10kbps.

Anyway back to autofs... two annoyances remain -
- I don't have a dns or mdns or zeroconfig solution on my home network
- On linpus, /etc/hosts is replaced at each boot
- autofs needs the hostname for my NAS (could be avoided using the IP address I guess)
- for some reason autofs isn't starting automatically, although chkconfig shows it configured

Well here's my somewhat ugly solution to the host name problem

[user@localhost ~]$ cat /etc/NetworkManager/dispatcher.d/02-hosts
#!/bin/bash
if [ "$2" = "up" ];
then
       FOUND=`grep dlink-EEF76A /etc/hosts | wc -l`

       if [ $FOUND = "0" ];
       then
               echo "Updating /etc/hosts"
               DATE=`date`
               echo "#updated by $0 at ${DATE}" >> /etc/hosts
               echo "192.168.1.10    dlink-EEF76A" >> /etc/hosts
       fi;
fi

autofs

Install autofs (yum install autofs), then follow the link below
Auto-mounting the NAS using autofs -
Accessing Windows Or Samba Shares Using AutoFS
add an entry for the NAS in /etc/hosts

Something fundamental I've missed is that autofs gets the key on demand.
so -
[user@localhost ~]$ ll /cifs
total 0

which isn't promising... but

[user@localhost ~]$ ll /cifs/DLINK-EEF76A/
total 0
drwxrwxrwx 24 user user 0 2008-10-16 01:43 Volume_1
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 2008-10-20 19:21 web_page

is what we want :)

A symbolic link simplifies access -
sudo ln -s /cifs/DLINK-EEF76A /mnt/nas

DAR backup

Well I started looking at the different file base alternatives, but relatively quickly put many of them on hold. They each have there benefits, and I'll try to get back to them soon - but here in bugwhine style, I'll just explain why I put them on hold.

unison
Interesting file synchronizing tool.
Unfortunately on hold, as it's written in Objective Caml, so building for Linpus may require a bunch of work, I don't have time to follow this path right now.

rdiff-backup
In brief - File based backup directory -> directory. Hard links and special files, permissions etc. are preserved.
Incremental diffs are preserved in a special directory.
rpm available at livna (rdiff-backup.i386)

Why on hold -
- requires own server on NAS
- backup to/from cifs/samba mount not recommended
- file based

rsnapshot
A filesystem snapshot tool, using rsync.
rpm available at livna - rsnapshot.noarch
Why on hold -
- snapshots may become 'messy' on the backup filesystem
- written in perl (*)

duplicity
Uploads encrypted tar volumes to remote system. Uses librsync.
rpm available at livna - duplicity.i386

Why on hold -
- doesn't handle hard links
- written in python (*)

DAR - Disk Archive
In the end DAR was the first utility I made a successful full and incremental backup with (ie. without putting it on hold). It's available at livna -

[root@localhost ~]# yum install dar.i386

My first impressions from the documentation and the command line switches was that it looked a bit primitive, and that maybe I should have not given up so easily on the other tools.

I tried a complete backup first as follows -

[root@localhost ~]# dar -v -z -R / -P dev -P proc -P mnt -P sys -P tmp -c /mnt/nas/aspire/full

and remained skeptical. It took quite some time, but the resulting file was a compact 915MB.
To put it further to the test, I tried an incremental backup -

[root@localhost ~]# dar -v -z -R / -P dev -P proc -P mnt -P sys -P tmp -A /mnt/nas/aspire/full -c /mnt/nas/aspire/diff1
...
--------------------------------------------
59 inode(s) saved
with 2324 hard link(s) recorded
0 inode(s) changed at the moment of the backup
80778 inode(s) not saved (no inode/file change)
0 inode(s) failed to save (filesystem error)
5 inode(s) ignored (excluded by filters)
0 inode(s) recorded as deleted from reference backup
--------------------------------------------
Total number of inode considered: 80842
--------------------------------------------

At this point my skepticism had almost completely died. The incremental backup was very fast, and efficient. Being 'tar' style (single file on the destination device), there aren't issues with cifs/samba permissions. A clean result, but still with the possibility to quickly restore individual files.

[root@localhost ~]# du -h /mnt/nas/aspire/*
3.0M /mnt/nas/aspire/diff1.1.dar
915M /mnt/nas/aspire/full.1.dar

The remaining thing bothering me, is manually specifying the paths to exclude from the backup. Perhaps a small thing, and perhaps something I should tune further.

I need to look further into a backup schedule, recovery methods and management of the archives with dar_manager - but this feels like a good start.

Thumbs up DAR.

(*) Perl and Python fans - I'm not against these languages at all. I just find that scripted solutions tend to be less well integrated than compiled solutions. Output messsages, exception handling etc, is often unprofessional in solutions based on scripting languages - and it was fairly clear that this is true also for rsnapshot and duplicity.

Backup of Aspire One to DNS-323

I want to backup my Aspire One to my DNS-323 NAS, there are a plethora of ways to do this, so I thought I'd evaluate them here.

The following methods came to mind immediately -
- copy the whole hard disk/partition image (ghost style)
- copy at a file level, rsync style

Initially I like the whole image method. It speeds up the recovery process, and with a Linux style implementation, it's probably possible to loop mount the image, if one just wants to recover some files anyway. Or would this require 120GB or RAM? :)

The first obstacle of the image method is that you probably need to have the file system either not mounted or mounted read-only. This could be a hassle - I certainly don't want to have to boot on an external drive to perform a backup... but maybe dropping down to single user mode would be ok.

It's worth noting that the Aspire one comes with a recovery DVD (bootable via external drive or copy to USB key), that can restore the system to it's factory install. This should be a reasonable starting point for then restoring changed applications/data/configuration from the backup mechanisms evaluated here.

Partimage
Well I liked the look of partimage, and decided to start here. Rather than setup partimaged on the NAS, it seems mounting the filesystem was an easier way to go. See below -

[user@localhost ~]$ su - Password:
[root@localhost ~]# modprobe cifs
[root@localhost ~]# mkdir /mnt/nas
[root@localhost ~]# mount -t cifs //192.168.1.10/Volume_1 /mnt/nas
Password:
[root@localhost ~]# wget "http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/partimage/partimage-static-0.6.5-1.rh7.rf.i386.rpm"
[root@localhost ~]# rpm -i partimage-static-0.6.5-1.rh7.rf.i386.rpm
warning: partimage-static-0.6.5-1.rh7.rf.i386.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 6b8d79e6
[root@localhost ~]# partimage-static

I then added an fstab entry for the partition
//192.168.1.10/Volume_1 /mnt/nas cifs auto,rw,user=guest,password=guest

but soon wandered off into issues with mounting it as a normal (non root user). For now I'm relying on sudo.
The big challenge is to unmount the root partition, or remount it in read-only mode, such that partimage can be safely used to produce a consistent image.

As the standard Linpus install only has one partition + swap, this challenge stumped me. The only options I see are unfortunately booting off external media, or doing some repartitioning. This is where I give up on this method for now.

Next I'll take a look at unison or rdiff-backup -
http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/
http://www.nongnu.org/rdiff-backup/

ssh and telnet

Well, what's a Linux install without ssh and telnet? I'm trying to resist hacking my new toy before I've learned it's pitfalls.. but ssh is something I need.

I'm starting as suggested by "The road to Elysium", let's hope it's a good road.

Alt-F2, Check 'Run in terminal', Run

[user@localhost ~]$ su -
Password:
[root@localhost ~]# yum -y install yum-priorities
fedora 2.1 kB 00:00
primary.sqlite.bz2 4.9 MB 00:07
updates 100% |=========================| 2.6 kB 00:00
primary.sqlite.bz2 100% |=========================| 2.2 kB 00:00
Setting up Install Process
Parsing package install arguments
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package yum-priorities.noarch 0:1.1.8-1.fc8 set to be updated
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

=============================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
=============================================================================
Installing:
yum-priorities noarch 1.1.8-1.fc8 fedora 8.1 k

Transaction Summary
=============================================================================
Install 1 Package(s)
Update 0 Package(s)
Remove 0 Package(s)

Total download size: 8.1 k
Downloading Packages:
(1/1): yum-priorities-1.1.8-1.fc8.noarch.rpm 8.1 kB 00:00
warning: rpmts_HdrFromFdno: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 4f2a6fd2
Importing GPG key 0x4F2A6FD2 "Fedora Project " from /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora
Importing GPG key 0xDB42A60E "Red Hat, Inc " from /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Installing: yum-priorities ######################### [1/1]

Installed: yum-priorities.noarch 0:1.1.8-1.fc8
Complete!

Check the contents of yum-priorities, edit it to match the below -

[root@localhost ~]# cat /etc/yum/pluginconf.d/priorities.conf
[main]
enabled = 1
check_obsoletes = 1

Install the livna repository -
[root@localhost ~]# rpm -Uvh http://www.fedorafaq.org/f8/yum http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm
Retrieving http://www.fedorafaq.org/f8/yum
Retrieving http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm
warning: /var/tmp/rpm-xfer.N4ZUob: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID a109b1ec
Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
1:livna-release ########################################### [ 50%]
2:yum-fedorafaq ########################################### [100%]

Some quick checking with yum shows openssl is ready installed, but not openssh.

[root@localhost ~]# yum list openssh*
Loading "priorities" plugin
119 packages excluded due to repository priority protections
Available Packages
openssh.i386 4.7p1-2.fc8 fedora
openssh-askpass.i386 4.7p1-2.fc8 fedora
openssh-clients.i386 4.7p1-2.fc8 fedora
openssh-server.i386 4.7p1-2.fc8 fedora
[root@localhost ~]# yum install openssh*
Loading "priorities" plugin
119 packages excluded due to repository priority protections
Setting up Install Process
Parsing package install arguments
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package openssh-askpass.i386 0:4.7p1-2.fc8 set to be updated
---> Package openssh-clients.i386 0:4.7p1-2.fc8 set to be updated
---> Package openssh.i386 0:4.7p1-2.fc8 set to be updated
---> Package openssh-server.i386 0:4.7p1-2.fc8 set to be updated
filelists.xml.gz 100% |=========================| 173 kB 00:01
filelists.sqlite.bz2 8.0 MB 00:22
filelists.sqlite.bz2 100% |=========================| 224 kB 00:01
filelists.sqlite.bz2 100% |=========================| 3.0 kB 00:00
filelists.sqlite.bz2 100% |=========================| 394 kB 00:00
filelists.sqlite.bz2 100% |=========================| 1.1 kB 00:00
filelists.sqlite.bz2 100% |=========================| 76 kB 00:00
--> Finished Dependency Resolution

Dependencies Resolved

=============================================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
=============================================================================
Installing:
openssh-askpass i386 4.7p1-2.fc8 fedora 38 k
openssh-clients i386 4.7p1-2.fc8 fedora 463 k
openssh-server i386 4.7p1-2.fc8 fedora 264 k
Installing for dependencies:
openssh i386 4.7p1-2.fc8 fedora 284 k

Transaction Summary
=============================================================================
Install 4 Package(s)
Update 0 Package(s)
Remove 0 Package(s)

Total download size: 1.0 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
(1/4): openssh-server-4.7p1-2.fc8.i386.rpm 264 kB 00:00
(2/4): openssh-4.7p1-2.fc8.i386.rpm 284 kB 00:00
(3/4): openssh-clients-4.7p1-2.fc8.i386.rpm 463 kB 00:00
(4/4): openssh-askpass-4.7p1-2.fc8.i386.rpm 38 kB 00:00
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
Installing: openssh ######################### [1/4]
Installing: openssh-askpass ######################### [2/4]
Installing: openssh-clients ######################### [3/4]
Installing: openssh-server ######################### [4/4]

Installed: openssh-askpass.i386 0:4.7p1-2.fc8 openssh-clients.i386 0:4.7p1-2.fc8 openssh-server.i386 0:4.7p1-2.fc8
Dependency Installed: openssh.i386 0:4.7p1-2.fc8
Complete!

And, oh how I love it when things work first go!

[root@localhost ~]# ssh root@192.168.1.10
The authenticity of host '192.168.1.10 (192.168.1.10)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 06:86:21:cb:61:3d:4f:4d:02:7f:41:22:0a:2b:52:0d.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added '192.168.1.10' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
root@192.168.1.10's password:
root@dlink-EEF76A:~# uname -a
Linux dlink-EEF76A 2.6.12.6-arm1 #29 Wed Apr 30 10:03:59 CST 2008 armv5tejl unknown
root@dlink-EEF76A:~# exit
Connection to 192.168.1.10 closed.

and for completeness -

[root@localhost ~]# yum install telnet.i386
...
Installed: telnet.i386 1:0.17-41.fc8
Complete!
[root@localhost ~]# telnet 192.168.1.10
Trying 192.168.1.10...
Connected to 192.168.1.10.
Escape character is '^]'.



BusyBox v1.12.0.svn (2008-07-11 12:43:14 CEST) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

# exit
Connection closed by foreign host.

Acer Aspire One A150L

Well, I've finally given up on my old Dell Inspiron 600m. It had it's good times, but in the end, two problems killed it.

1. Physical
At a party I hosted, a friends 2 year old girl fell off the bed, and landed head first on the Dell. Amazingly she was not really hurt. The next day I realised why, the LCD had softened the blow, and no longer worked.

2. HW bug
From when I purchased the machine (back in 2004), it occasionally had a problem, where for no apparent reason, the machine would run incredibly slowly (usually from power on). Over the years it became more frequent, now it happens most of the time. I've given up on trying to troubleshot this... but the same behaviour occurs both in Linux and Windows, so I'm fairly sure it's a hardware problem.

So now it's out with the old, in with the new -

Aspire one A150-A / 8.9" LED CB / Atom N270 1.6Ghz / UMA / 2*512 / 1*120GB / 802.11bg / 5-in-1 / SD / 3 cells / 0.3DV CrystalEye / Linux Lite / blue


One of these is on it's way to me now (I hope). In some markets the hard disk version of the Aspire one (A150) is sold only with it's Microsoft tax paid - Sweden is one such market. Fortunately in Finland and the UK, the Linux variant is sold.. and I managed to find a Swedish online store (Multitronic) that has Finnish roots - and they're selling the Finnish, Microsoft tax-free version here in Sweden.

So.. if you're wondering how much Microsoft taxes PC makers for XP, it seems to be 641 SEK (around $90US), give or take Swedish moms (or VAT), which is more difficult to avoid.