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.

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.

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 #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

udev

After some compilation and installation following this post FC8 HP LaserJet M1005 MFP installation -step-by-step-, I managed to get my scanner to work on Linpus. Unfortunately only as root. To get past this, I needed to dig into the world of udev. Here's what I found -

The scanner is found, as follows -
[user@localhost udev]$ sane-find-scanner
found USB scanner (vendor=0x03f0, product=0x3b17) at libusb:001:004

and after updating /etc/udev/rules.d/60-libsane.rules, udev is creating a symlink for the scanner -

[user@localhost udev]$ ll /dev/scanner-1-2.3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 2008-10-20 16:33 /dev/scanner-1-2.3 -> bus/usb/001/004
[user@localhost udev]$ ll /dev/bus/usb/001/004
crw-r--r--+ 1 user root 189, 3 2008-10-20 16:54 /dev/bus/usb/001/004

and magically after a restart, it's even creating them with the right owner. A lot of playing around yesterday (perhaps without restarting) had me frustrated, as it was consistently created with root:root as the owner.

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.