Nvidia proprietary legacy drivers and Ubuntu: go to 96.43.19

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Upgrading to 10.10 broke the nvidia-96 drivers on my tc1100 tablet with the error: dlopen: /usr/lib/xorg/extra-modules/nvidia_drv.so: undefined symbol: miEmptyData. during Xorg startup.  Unfortunately I have to stick to nvidia-96 (legacy drivers) as my tablet has an nVidia Corporation NV17 GeForce4 420 Go 32M in it. If you experience this error, you’ll better switch briefly on … Leggi tutto

The day the sheevaplug died

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Tonight the sheevaplug died, sending napalmpiri.openssl.it down. Dead cold. I suspected at once a PSU issue, and that turned out to be too true.
Warning: twiddling with the PSU means dealing with electricity at dangerous voltages. It involves a dangerous hot soldering iron. If you are not skilled these things may conjure up and ruin your day. Or you may burn down the house. This is not a joke. If you don’t feel confident, just buy another plug.
Unfortunately Globalscale technologies gives only a 30 days warranty, so I was basically stuck.
I think that the sheevaplug, from the hardware point, is really flaky. It may be good as a developer tool, but it’s just too flaky even as a home server.

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Quake Wars sound delay on Ubuntu

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I found my fix without changing pulseaudio configuration (which works fine otherwise) try launching etqw as such: > etqw.x86 +set s_driver oss UPDATE(6/11/2010): on Ubuntu 10.10 the kernel is shipped without OSS support. So unless you are going to compile your own kernel, I suggest you to avoid updating. Good work, Ubuntu, we had 2 … Leggi tutto

hylafax with UFW on Ubuntu

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I’m experimenting with Hylafax on my ARM server. I got a seemgly working usb fax (Atlantis Land a01-pu3 v1.2) and I’m playing with it. Hylafax has no problem recognizing the modem, and at first I opened port 4559 on the Hylafax server to permit comunication with the Hylafax client. Unfortuntely I didn’t work. Disabling the … Leggi tutto

tc1100 wi-fi hardware switch: a pain in the hat under linux

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A while ago I decided to fix something under my HP tc1100 hood. I had bad idea: I loaded the default  BIOS settings. Turning the tablet on I had a bad surprise: the wi-fi card was hardware disabled. Unfortunately the tc1100 has an ipw2100 card but no physical hardware switch and without a windows partition I was stuck with the wifi off. I previously had the same problem with a Toshiba nb200, but there I had more luck. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if a linux only system is good in a “Windows only” world.
Disclaimer: following the steps outlined here may brick damage or otherwise set on fire your tc1100 and/or your neighborhood. Please follow them or reproduce them on your tc1100 only if you are willing to damage it, brick it, and set the house on fire. Seriously, this is tricky stuff. I suggest you to avoid flashing the bios if everything is working. If you have to, fully charge the battery and use an external UPS to power the TC1100 just in case. Internet is full of bricked tc1100s. When in doubt, use a real Windows for the flash operation.

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Wi-Fi not working after ubuntu hardy upgrade to karmic

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I did an upgrade from Hardy to Karmic on an Ubuntu Box that experienced problems with the Atheros PCI wi-fi card in it. The signal was weak (the signal is weak indeed, but it uses to work in Windows, so I expect it to work also in Linux) The box wasn’t upgrade in a while, … Leggi tutto

Toshiba nb 200 wifi kill switch (disable & enable)

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I was a bit disappointed last time when I disabled the Wifi under Windows XP and booted from Ubuntu Lucid. The wireless card wasn’t working anymore, with no apparent means to revive it. I had to boot back in Windows and let the magic do his work. I had to find a way to this under Linux without the need for a Microsoft OS and I did

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