Archive for the ‘Debian’ Category

During my holiday brake visiting family I have been assisting my brother with updating his laptop to Debian Squeeze/testing. When he was running Lenny/stable we loaded KeyTouch to get the multimedia valume controles on his keyboard to register in XFCE. With Squeeze/testing this was not working. However, I can set the audio controls in XFCE’s Keyboard application found in settings. I clicked on the Applications Shortcuts and clicked the Add Button. Here I imputed the following commands and after clicking OK was prompted to press the proper key (e.g. slide the volume control dial up or down).

increase volume:

amixer set Master 5+

decrease volume:

amixer set Master 5-

mute and unmute:

amixer set Master toggle

Make sure sources are enabled and you have contrib and non-free enabled in /etc/apt/srouces.list and include the unstable branch with squeeze.

deb http://mirror.its.uidaho.edu/pub/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free
deb-src http://mirror.its.uidaho.edu/pub/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free

# UNSTABLE
deb http://mirror.its.uidaho.edu/pub/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free

Now update apt.

as root:

echo ‘APT::Default-Release “testing”;’ >/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/00defaultrelease

aptitude module-assistant linux-source-2.6.30

apt-get -t unstable install fglrx-control fglrx-driver fglrx-source

m-a a-i fglrx

aticonfig –initial

restart X or reboot system

Might work on lenny and/or 64bit variations

NOTE: These instruction apply to the 2.6.32-2 kernels

Make sure sources are enabled and you have contrib and non-free enabled in /etc/apt/srouces.list and include the unstable branch with squeeze.

deb http://mirror.its.uidaho.edu/pub/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free
deb-src http://mirror.its.uidaho.edu/pub/debian/ squeeze main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main contrib non-free

# UNSTABLE
deb http://mirror.its.uidaho.edu/pub/debian/ unstable main contrib non-free

as root edit /etc/apt/prefernces and add:

Package: *
Pin: release o=Debian,a=testing
Pin-Priority: 900

Package: *
Pin: release o=Debian,a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 300

Package: *
Pin: release o=Debian
Pin-Priority: -1

as root:

aptitude install nvidia-kernel-source/unstable

aptitude install module-assistant

m-a prepare

m-a a-i nvidia-kernel-source

aptitude -t unstable install nvidia-glx nvidia-libvdpau1 nvidia-settings nvidia-xconfig

OPTIONAL: remove or quote out the unstable/sid entry in /etc/apt/source.list and run apt-get update

as root

nvidia-xconfig
mv /etc/X11/XF86Config /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Start or restart Xorg (might require reboot)

Server

apt-get install nfs-kernel-server nfs-common portmap

Client

apt-get install nfs-common portmap

edit /etc/exports to identify the path to the directory you wish to share, and indicate the IP address(es) (use * as a wildcard) you wish to have access to you files.

/home/user/myfiles 192.168.0.*(rw,root_squash)

sudo exportfs -a

Access from Windows XP

Download the MS Unix layer and run self extractor and execute SfuSetup. click change the default behavior to case sensitive and enable set uid behavior select local username mapping server and password group files. copy /etc/passwd and /etc/group to your windows computer and specify path and reboot computer

run services for Unix administrations and in the NFS client make all user groups and others read and writable. open Windows Explorer under network places you should see a NFS tree, and within it you should see your servers IP address. if everything worked you should have access to your NFS directories via windows.

Access in Linux

To mount as root (create desired mount point first and replace IP with your servers IP):

mount 200.100.10.1:/home/nfs /mnt/nfs

to mount on boot edit/etc/fstab the extra options control read and write access by blocks)

200.100.10.1:/home/nfs /pub nfs rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr

it should be noted that vfat and ntfs filesytems have issues with the nfs protocol and can result in sporadic performance and data corruption.

Download the netinst cd

Remove all partition tables on pendrive

Download boot image

As root preform (where as /dev/sdX is your USB device):

zcat boot.img.gz > /dev/sdX

Copy iso image to flashdrive

Plug the pendrive into the netbook and boot (hold escape at the bios splash to select the boot device). Begin install as normal. No network device will be found, select no etherent card and continue as normal. When it came to configuring apt I hit the go back button till I am asked if I want to continue without a network connection. The install will finish and reboot. Upon reboot you are presented with a base line system.

Format pendrive to ext3 and copy the 2.6.31 kernel image and headers packages; thanks to Robertalks.com

Login as root and mount flash drive and install the image first then the headers with dpkg. reboot and the 2.6.31 kernal will be the default on grub. Log into root again, plug in an ethernet cable connected to a router/modem and issue the command:

dhclient eth0

Check the connection by updating apt and see that all entries in the sources.list where found. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list with nano and add my favorite mirror.

deb http://mirror.its.uidaho.edu/pub/debian/ lenny main cont rib non-free

Apt-get update and upgrade and all is well. Now, install a basic X environment and configure

apt-get install x-window-system-core fluxbox
Xorg -configure

cp xorg.conf.net /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Install sudo with apt-get and configure

apt-get install sudo
visudo

Towards the end remove the comment from the %sudo line and replace NOPASSWD: with (All) and hit ctrl X to exit. Add the regular user to the sudo group

gpasswd -a myuser sudo

Exit root and login as regular user and edit .xinitrc

exec startfluxbox

Test X with the command startx and there should be a working fluxbox desktop.

Open up a terminal and type sudo tasksel. Select laptop and press ok, tasksell will then fetch all laptop related packages and configure them. Then I install synaptic, which has the added benefit of installing a general gtk enviroment for future gtk application. Also install gtk-theme-switch and gtk-engines. Type switch2 to adjust the gtk-theme for you X enviroment (I selected crux). Underneath applications system package management find synaptic. Upon running it the gksu dialog pops up; type in root (to change to sudo mode open terminal and type gksu-properties). With synaptic, install laptop-mode-tools laptop-net.

To get wireless access add to the /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main contrib non-free

Update apt and install debian-backports-keyring and wicd. Afterwards add the user to the netdev group and restart dbus.

Sudo gpasswd -a user netdev.
Sudo /etc/init.d/dbus restart

Exit fluxbox and exit user. Log back in as user and startx. In the applications under network and monitor WICD is now listed. Click on it and it loads in the system tray. Right click and find the available wireless services.

to get sound working install alsa-utils and its dependencies. Then run sudo alsaconf and select hda-intel

add deb http://eeepc.debian.net/debian lenny main contrib non-free to /etc/apt/sources.list then:

wget http://eeepc.debian.net/debian/archive-key-eeepc.asc
sudo apt-key add archive-key-eeepc.asc

Install eeepc-acpi-scripts

To get the webcam to work first download the 2.6.31 source and install. Now, install v4l-conf dov4l gspca-source libpt-plugins-v4l2 gcc-4.2 and run as root:

I spent over 3 hours trying to get the webcam working with no luck. After walking away from it, I downgraded to the 2.6.30 image and headers found in the backports, and could see myself when I ran luvcview.However, the trade off is that my eth0 device is no longer availible, but I always connect with wireless with my netbook.

And now I have a basic environment in which I can start to install applications and configure my netbook. I will continue in another post to describe specific configurations to get the most out of Debian on the Asus eee PC 1005HA.