Category Archives: Linux

Linux, ThinkPad, Ubuntu

Ubuntu 8.10 on Thinkpad X300

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I upgraded my Lenovo Thinkpad X300 to Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex today. My original installation notes for Hardy are here.

After the upgrade, sound was working without compiling an ALSA snapshot by hand. Also, 3G connections worked straight out of the NetworkManager applet, which is very nice. But WiFi was broken, as the nm-applet refused to connect to any SSID, encrypted or open. That seemed to be due to myself using the development networkmanager packages with Hardy. They were not upgraded correctly. The remedy was to remove all network-manager packages and reinstall them. Continue reading Ubuntu 8.10 on Thinkpad X300 →

Cisco, IPv6, Linux, Networking, OpenWRT

Dynamic IPv6 routing with Cisco IOS and Quagga on OpenWRT

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Here’s how to make dynamic IPv6 routing work between a Cisco IOS router and an OpenWRT Linux Quagga router. I couldn’t find a similar howto anywhere, so I decided to write my own.

I am using OpenWRT Kamikaze 7.09 (kernel 2.4) on an ASUS WL-500gP wireless router. Any IPv6 enabled Cisco router should do.

I assume you have already installed the IPV6 kernel modules and userland tools, and set up static addresses for your interfaces (if you haven’t check out the OpenWRT IPv6 Howto).

I am using SixXS for tunneling an IPv6 /48 prefix over IPv4. Continue reading Dynamic IPv6 routing with Cisco IOS and Quagga on OpenWRT →

CentOS, Hardware, HP Smart Array, Linux, ProLiant, Storage

HP Array Configuration and Diagnostic Utilities on Linux

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Getting the HP Array Configuration Utility (ACU) and the Array Diagnostic Utility (ADU) for Linux to work was non-trivial. It does not seem to be supported anymore, but I managed to get it working on CentOS 5 running on an HP ProLiant DL185 G5.

Continue reading HP Array Configuration and Diagnostic Utilities on Linux →

Hardware, Linux, ThinkPad, Ubuntu

Lenovo ThinkPad X300 Ubuntu 8.04 Installation Notes

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First, let me tell you some first impressions about the machine. The keyboard is very good. It feels even a bit better than the one in my old T60. The display is very bright and sharp, but viewing angles could be better. WLAN worked right out of the box, as did the webcam.

The solid state drive is incredibly fast. I will never switch back to a hard disk after experiencing an SSD. Everything loads up in an instance. OpenOffice starts in about 5 seconds, which is very good compared to my T60. And the machine boots up and shuts down really fast (I haven’t timed those operations, though).

There are also a couple of annoyances which I hope will soon be fixed. Continue reading Lenovo ThinkPad X300 Ubuntu 8.04 Installation Notes →

Linux, Networking, Ubuntu

Limiting the bandwidth of incoming traffic

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A backup server was saturating the DSL links of remote offices every time the backups were running. To prevent this, I had to limit the incoming bandwidth of the TCP-connections that were used to back up the remote hosts, but not touch the ones that were used to connect to the servers in the local network. Here’s how to do it.

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Linux, Maemo, Ubuntu

Scratchbox installation under 32-bit chroot on 64-bit Ubuntu

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I wanted to try out the Maemo SDK for Nokia 770, N800 and N810 devices (for some reason I happen to own one of every generation), but found out that there are no prebuilt packages for the 64-bit environment. The quick (?) remedy for this is the chroot jail, because a guest i386 environment can pretty easily be bootstrapped inside a 64-bit one. Here are the step-by-step instructions for doing it.

Continue reading Scratchbox installation under 32-bit chroot on 64-bit Ubuntu →

Linux, Red Hat, Storage

IBM SDD driver troubleshooting on Linux

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The Subsystem Device Driver [SDD] is a pseudo device driver designed to support the multipath configuration environments in the IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server, the IBM TotalStorage DS family, the IBM SystemStorage SAN Volume Controller. It resides in a host system with the native disk device driver and provides the following functions:

– Enhanced data availability
– Dynamic I/O load-balancing across multiple paths
– Automatic path failover protection
– Concurrent download of licensed internal code
– Path-selection policies for the host system

Continue reading IBM SDD driver troubleshooting on Linux →

Linux, Ubuntu, Virtualization, Xen

Bootstrapping an Ubuntu guest for Xen

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First, some empty disk space is needed. Let’s create a logical volume for our new virtual machine:

Create a filesystem on the new logical volume:

Continue reading Bootstrapping an Ubuntu guest for Xen →

Ubuntu, VMware

How to get VMware Server working with an unsupported kernel and the vmware-any-any patch

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VMware Server needs exactly two kernel modules running on the host system (there are separate modules for guest systems). These are the vmmon and the vmnet modules. Unfortunately, the vmmon and vmnet packages included in the VMware server distribution package don’t compile with the newest kernels. When I upgraded my laptop to Gutsy Gibbon a few weeks ago, I forgot to check if VMware server supports the new kernel. And, of course, it doesn’t yet. But luckily I found the vmware-any-any package, a patched version of the host kernel modules that works with newer kernel versions.

Continue reading How to get VMware Server working with an unsupported kernel and the vmware-any-any patch →

Firefox, Shell scripts, Ubuntu

Updated version of the flash64.sh script for Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon

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A few months ago I released a script to install a 32-bit Adobe Flash plugin to a 64-bit Firefox, but it doesn’t seem to work in Gutsy beta. Here’s an updated one. I upgraded my laptop to Gutsy and used this one to get Flash working.

Edit: I did a complete reinstall later and learned that Gutsy knows how to set this up by itself. So there’s no need for this script anymore. And that is a very positive thing!

Continue reading Updated version of the flash64.sh script for Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon →

Storage, Ubuntu

Creating a RAID array out of cheap USB disks

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A RAID array is a bunch of disks used together in co-operation to create a redundant storage facility. Hard drives are mechanical devices with moving parts, which makes them prone to failure. You can imagine what it means to spin the hard drive platters at 7200 rpm, for years without a pause in a typical server setup. Eventually, all disks die. A disk may run for a decade without a hinge, but another disk of the same type may die after a year. The problem is, there is reliable way to predict when a particular disk dies.

Continue reading Creating a RAID array out of cheap USB disks →