Ubuntu Fusion

Here is an instruction on installing VMware tools in Ubuntu 8.04, the Hardy Heron. The problem was due to not having a vmmemctl module available for Linux kernel 2.6.2x, which also apparently changed its API, enough to prevent the VMware Fusion tools from compiling its own module.

After following this instruction, you should be able to access the nice features it provides.

There is, alas, no Unity for any Gnu Linux distro yet.

less reason to trust apple

Amazing. The iPhone price dropped by $200 with no compensation (as yet) to the early adopter. What I find disturbing is someone who saved two paychecks to buy an iPhone. What? If you can't afford it, why would you buy one, and then complain about it? It's similar to the idea of finding a nice, big-screen TV in a house owned by those "below the poverty level."

We really should teach children how to resist advertising messages that are designed to distort reality. So when they grow up, they will avoid being so easily seduced.

Two paychecks!? And as I said, Apple is fundamentally a proprietary company that, as I recall, support Microsoft Office Open XML over the OpenDocument Format. This price drop could also be regarded as a way to screw the hackers that cracked the iPhone. It could also be a response to China's distribution of an iPhone clone.

It's a splendid business move for Apple, admirable in its scope, suddenness and perhaps greed. It gives one more reason for me to remain attached to free-software and/or open-source cause. You never have to worry about buyer's remorse because there are no secrets. Milestones are acknowledged with little steps taken along the way, not announced dramatically or teased. Everything is open. You can read about Ubuntu's newest version (Gutsy Gibbons) to be released in October, and know which features are successfully completed, and which are not.

I would rather be a rebel than a soldier fighting for an emperor with Force Reality Distortion Field and Force Lightning. Bill Gates was vilified as "The Borg," assimilating everything in its path, trying to achieve "perfection." If Apple does compensate for the early adopters, then maybe all is forgiven. Maybe.

That doesn't mean, of course, I don't want an iPhone or an iPod Touch. There's something to be said about Jobs' penchant for beautiful design of software and hardware.

google desktop for linux

Without much fanfare apparent, Google Desktop is now available for Linux. There are two packages you can download, one for Red Hat Linux and its derivatives, and the other for Debian-based distributions, including Ubuntu.

I recommend following the instruction for installing Google Desktop from their Linux Software Repositories instead. Once you have added the repository, an update manager for your distribution should automatically notify you of updates to Google Desktop, without your needing to check it manually.

Although Google Desktop is non-free software, I couldn't care less as long as it is good software. I am not a pure-free software advocate. I can't wait to see gadget features and sidebar that I hope will be developed. I love the history that it keeps, even though it can feel like you lost your privacy, but you can find anything you had read just days ago that you thought were lost forever.

An example is Craig's List. As you know, listings expire after seven days. What if you have seen a memorable post that you forgot to save and want to find again? Google Desktop most likely already saved it for you. So, all you need to do is try to remember a key word, a phrase, and look for it in Google Desktop. It saves a history of what you have done, except for https:// sites, which is disabled (unless you choose to enable it).

I hope Google Desktop won't break with each upgrade to a new version of Ubuntu.

wireless networking

Regarding Apple AirPort Extreme and third-party devices. The short answer: It's possible, but probably painful. Link

After looking online, I find that the support for 802.11n in the Linux world to be just starting, i.e. it sucks. There are two or three main projects involved in helping to provide wireless card compatibility. The first is reverse-engineering; the second is following only the IEEE 802.11 standards, and we know that 802.11n will not be standardized until September 2008; the third is using a wrapper software around a Windows driver.

I am not sure Ubuntu will support the 802.11n draft 2.0 card well, but I will keep looking online for more info.

printing to windows from mac os x or linux (ubuntu)

If you have a Windows-shared printer and you would like to print to it from your Mac OS X or Ubuntu Linux, the following instructions should help you get started.

First, in Windows XP, you must set up TCP/IP Printer for Unix:

1. Go to Start -> Control Panel


2. Double-click Add/Remove Programs


3. Click Add/Remove Windows Components


4. Look for Other Network Files and Printer Services


5. Select Print Services for Unix


6. Wait for Windows XP to install


7. Go back to Control Panel


8. Double-click Administrative Tools


9. Double-click Services


10. Double-click TCP/IP Print Server


11. Set it to turn on Automatically, and start the server if it isn't already started

If you haven't already set the printer to be shared, please do so now:

1. Go to Printers from the Start menu


2. Right-click on a printer you want to share and select Sharing


3. Click to Share the printer. You may want to change the name to something more memorable.

You are almost done. The next instruction is for Mac OS X 10.4:

1. Go to Preferences, click on Printer and Fax


2. Click the + to add printer.


3. Click on "More Printer"


4. The top selection box should say "Windows Printer"


5. The second selection box should say Network Neighborhood, if not, select that.


6. Look for the printer's name in the Network Neighborhood and double-click to add.


7. You will need to enter the username and password of the Windows computer.


8. You may not have the correct driver for the printer because you do not want to select Generic Postscript at all. You will need to go to <a href="http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/">Gutenprint</a> to download the printer drivers and install.


9. Select the correct printer driver from the list


10. You should be able to print now.

For Ubuntu 7.04:

1. Go to System -> Administration -> Printing


2. Double-click New Printer


3. Click on Network Printer


4. Change the selection box on the right to Windows printer (SMB)


5. You may get a dialog box that says Authentication required, you will need to enter the username and password that you have on the Windows PC.


6. For Host name, enter the name of the Windows PC on the network


7. For Printer, enter the name of the printer share.


8. For Driver, find the name of the printer for the driver. Select simple Gimp-print or Gutenprint CUPS. Gimp-print is already available in Ubuntu because it comes with Gimp, the photo-editing software.

sdb bombed

I am writing to say that the secondary hard drive of my Ubuntu system, the one in which I stored my /home partition, has given up the ghost. Last night, upon doing a routine fsck check, it brought up the error "Attempt to read from block from filesystem resulted in short read reading block 1547"

This is one of the more "chilling message" you can read on a Unix-like system. From what I've seen online, this is simply the state of a dead hard drive. I have already backed up from several weeks ago, so not all are lost, but of course, it does not have account of the things I had done since then.

Ah, well. That's a problem with being on a cutting-edge. You bleed, then you terrify the mortals with your scars and stories of pestilence, as if you were some silent shaman in contact with the blackest magic.

This, though, was not the fault of Ubuntu. As ever, the fault lies on me, for making such a journey.

Things I read today

From 2006:
When the boughs break
And oranges
Juggling Oranges

zombie and orphan

I don't understand UNIX-like operating system sometimes. I assume that a parent spawn a child process, then if the child process dies, but the parents have not reaped it, then that child process is named a zombie. If the parent dies, the child becomes an orphan, taken over by the init.

Firefox starts a netstat, which is a zombie until I close firefox.

The six basic ideas are fork, exec, open, close, read, and write. Hmm.

feisty fawn upgrade didn't go well

The Ubuntu upgrade didn't go well at all, unfortunately. After finishing the installation, I went in for the reboot this morning, only to get problem with mounting /dev/hdb1, my /home partition on a separate hard disk drive. After some fiddling, I had to leave my computer alone because I needed to go volunteering at 1 pm.

I noticed in the /dev/. directory that there was no hdb1 device, but there was an sdb1. It was around this time that I had to leave. I had a hunch on what I might needed to do to fix the problem.

Now, coming back at 11 pm, I proceeded to try to "mount -t ext3 /dev/sdb1 /home"

It worked. I then changed fstab to reflect this strangeness and logged on and saw my /home partition with everything still there. Unfortunately, there are still problems. But I have to get to bed because I must get up early in the morning to go to the school for the deaf. When I get home though, I plan to geek out on the computer.

Errrr, maybe not. I'll just download that CD installer and perform a clean install instead.