Large memory support/PAE is still not present in the desktop version. The server kernel boots but freezes 2 minutes after login.

But one thing that I missed the both is online backup software that I used to use – Carbonite and Mozy. I have been using Carbonite for over a year and it has paid for itself several times. I was planning to switch to Mozy Pro at the time so I can get their “30 days of changes” feature but my laptop died first. Being a busy kind of guy, I never got around to looking for something on Linux until now. The funny thing is that even though I am spread out among several servers and cloud environments with multiple projects in different online systems, there is still plenty of local data and projects which I rather not move to the web (a subject for another post).

I had several requirements for backups:

• Unlimited storage with my own control over it – ability to backup to Amazon S3
• Encrypted backups with my own encryption key, not accessible to the provider – I don’t want my storage to be subpoenable or accessible to hackers if my Amazon credentials get public
• Keeping 30 days worth of changes like Mozy does – you never know when you need that old file
• Automatic backup at regular intervals
• GUI interface preferred
• Ability to select which folders/files to backup
• Incremental backup
• Bandwidth throttling like Mozy and Carbonite

After looking around, the best open source solution I found was a combination of cron jobs, tar, some sort of an S3 FUSE or shell interface, and lots of hacking. The problem is that I do not have the time to do the hacking which would probably take a few hours. So I ended up trying out JungleDisk which does all of the above but will cost $20 after the 30 day trial. As I wrote in my previous post, it is an easy to use tool that solves a specific problem, one that I would be happy to pay a low fee for rather than do it myself.

As I write this, JungleDisk is copying about 3 GBs of data to S3. I will try to post a followup in a few weeks.

1. For Subversion, I basically followed this guide written by Joe Maller. For 1&1 there are two important notes – you need to specify –without-neon in order to avoid errors with svn/python bindings, AND if you install everything into a single directory, it helps too.

2. For Trac, you need to download and extract Python 2.5. Then you can install it with ./configure –prefix=SOME DIRECTORY. After installation, just update your PATH in bashprofile and relogin. KEEP IN MIND: Subversion will only be available via SSH and only to a single user. 1&1 does not allow multiple SSH users on one account AND they do not have the SSH module installed in Apache. IF you are looking for a multiuser Subversion, try a different provider.

3. After Trac is installed, you can use trac.cgi or trac.fcgi for the web based stuff. HOWEVER, do change the shebang line to point to the Python 2.5 executable in your home directory.

4.  SQL Lite does not work on 1&1. Use MySQL instead.

Unfortunately, after spending a sizable amount of my day on this, I realized that I need multiuser access. 1&1 does not allow more than one SSH user so I wasted my time with this. Instead, I just got an account with DreamHost which will host SVN and Trac. While DreamHost isn’t the most reliable host in the world, it looks like I will be using 1&1 for the more reliable stuff like websites and Dreamhost for development.

1. When running yum update the following error comes up:

Missing Dependency: /usr/bin/rebuild-security-providers is needed by package java-1.5.0-gcj

To resolve the issue, you need to download the following three packages manually from the FC8 repository and install them in the order that I specified. Install as follows

First java_cup by itself, then sinjdoc and java-1.5.0-gcj together

2. The second problem comes up when trying to bundle the image using ec2-bundle-vol. The following error comes up:

rsync: failed to set times on …

This error is described in detail in this post. The solution tha I picked was similar to one of the ones described in the post – I downloaded the RPM package for rsync from FC6 and manually replaced the executable in /usr/bin.

3. The third problem happens when creating an image manifest in ec2-bundle-vol. The error is as follows:

/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rexml/text.rb:292: in normalize: private method gsub called for 43:Fixnum (NoMethodError)

The solution is to get the latest document.rb and text.rb files from the SVN repository here and replace the old ones in /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rexml/. Or you can do a diff as described in this post.

UPDATE: A fourth issue came up as well – Ghostscript no longer has JPEG2000 support and as the result losts of “JPXDecode” errors occur when processing. The reason for that is due to the Fedora Core 8 Ghostscript package no longer being compiled with JPEG2000 support as of version 8.61-6.fc.8. The solution is to downgrade to 8.61-5 which can be found here. I contacted the packager and will post a reply.

UPDATE #2: The ghostscript problem has been filed as bug # 433897 with Redhat. I also emailed the packager but received no reply.

1. Enabled the proposed repository in System->Administration->Software Sources.

2. Go to Synaptic and install the latest flash plugin from the proposed repository.

3. Go to Opera’s website and install the 9.50 beta version.

4. Start Opera, go to Tools-> Preferences->Advanced->Downloads. Search for extension “swf”.

5. To the extensions box, type in “swf, flv”.

6. Find the entry for “flv” in the downloads list. If the Totem browser plugin is listed it, remove it.

NOTE: I am running Redhat Fedora Core 3 and am providing instructions for that OS only.

To start off, the default wireless driver used for this card (orinoco_cs) does not support WPA. In order to use WPA with this card, you will need to install a different driver plus a special software piece called a “supplicant” which takes care of the authentication (I happen to use “wpa_supplicant”). Here are the steps you should follows.

1. Download the latest stable hostap-driver, wpa_supplicant and hostap-utils source from http://hostap.epitest.fi/.
2. Extract the hostap-driver and hostap-utils source into two directories, switch to root (su) and run make in each directory (if you are running kernel v2.6.12, you will need to fiddle with the source of the kernel until hostap compiles properly).

NOTE: Before running make on hostap-driver, you will need to enable the NVRAM download. Look for a file called “hostap_config.h” in “/driver/modules” directory of the extracted source. In it, find the line “#define PRISM2_NON_VOLATILE_DOWNLOAD” and make sure it is NOT commented out.

3. Run the “make install” command in the hostap-driver directory to install the driver.
4. Find the “/etc/pcmcia/config” file. In it you will find the entry for the Microsoft MN-520 card. You need to comment out the entry with “#”.
5. Restart the pcmcia services by running “/etc/init.d/pcmcia restart” in order to reload the configuration file.
6. In the system log you should see something along the lines of the following when you insert the PCMCIA card (you can use “tail /var/log/messages -f” to monitor it):

Jul 31 17:16:46 localhost kernel: hostap_cs: 0.3.7 – 2005-02-12 (Jouni Malinen)
Jul 31 17:16:47 localhost kernel: hostap_cs: Registered netdevice wifi0
Jul 31 17:16:47 localhost kernel: hostap_cs: index 0×01: Vcc 5.0, irq 3, io 0×0100-0x013f
Jul 31 17:16:47 localhost kernel: wifi0: NIC: id=0x800c v1.0.0
Jul 31 17:16:47 localhost kernel: wifi0: PRI: id=0×15 v1.1.0
Jul 31 17:16:47 localhost kernel: wifi0: STA: id=0x1f v1.4.97. Now at this point, the driver should be functional. HOWEVER, the second piece of the puzzle – the wpa_supplicant WILL NOT work until the firmware on the actual card is upgraded. Before doing that, go into the hostap-utils directory, and run the following command: “./hostap_diag wlan0″. You should see something along the lines of:

NICID: id=0x800c v1.0.0 (PRISM II (2.5) PCMCIA (SST parallel flash))
PRIID: id=0×0015 v1.1.0
STAID: id=0x001f v1.4.9 (station firmware)

The three version numbers in the syslog and provided by hostap_diag are the version numbers of the firmware. In order for wpa_supplicant to work, they need to be upgraded to v1.70 (the latest is 1.84). Jun Sun has a webpage devoted to the discussion on the gory details.

NOTE: Flashing firmware on your card may render is unusable and is not covered by warranty. Additionally, depending on the country you are in and the manufacturor of the card, this may even be illegal. I take no responsibility for anything that may happen to you or your card. Remember: you are on your own here
8. Download the latest Prism firmware from Pavel Roski’s site. In that file you will find several directories. In the primary directory look for a file called “pk*something”, in the secondary look for a file called “sf*something”. These are the right firmware revisions for the MN-520 card. Make sure that the “sf” file is numbered at least above 01070.
9. Put the two files into the hostap-util directory and run “./prism2_srec pk**** sk*****”. You NEED to include both files. If everything is fine, the program will end off with an “OK” message. This just a check to make sure the files are compatible.
10. If you are to update the card, run “./prism2_srec -v -f pk**** sk*****” to actually update the card. Following that, plug it out and plug it back in, and you should have the following in your syslog indicating the higher version numbers:

kernel: wifi0: NIC: id=0x800c v1.0.0
kernel: wifi0: PRI: id=0×15 v1.1.1
kernel: wifi0: STA: id=0x1f v1.8.4

11. After this is done, you can actually replace the hostap drivers with RPMs from atRPMs since the firmware update ability will no longer be needed.
12. After this is all finished, install wpa_supplicant (either via a precompiled RPMs or straight compiled). After installation, change the “/etc/wpa_suplicant.conf” file with your network data and run it as follows:

/usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -iwlan0 -d

If everything is fine, the WPA support should go up and work.

Feel free to leave comments on this post.

I found it quick enough (but you will have to look for it yourself). It is simply appaling – the article does not remotely pass for anything remotely related to technology news. Instead it reads like a detective story about how Ms. O’Gara “was just looking for Pamela”. In the process of this “search” Ms. O’Gara came across Ms. Jones’s home address, complete with apartment number. She also spoke to the super of the building, got some nice juicy stories out of him including her age, religious affiliation, her mother’s address and some religious booklets. All of this information is something that most normal human beings that are sane consider private and do not publish or reveal to strangers. A normal journalist would have kept that information queit and simply written a small article describing the search (or more probably would not have written one at all).

However, INSTEAD Ms. O’Gara decided to publish ALL of the information complete with pictures on the Web. And if that wasn’t enough, the article that comes along with the information puts every single piece of it into negative light. This is simply the lowest of the lowest in journalism, something more approriate for the National Enquirer or the Weekly World News, rather than a technology related publication with a relatively decent reputation. Of course, the reactions were quick to come by: multiple editors of many publications have commented on how despicable this is (FreeSoftware Mag, LinuxToday, LinuxWorld [1] and [2]).

Now imagine if someone goes ahead, and publishes your home address, telephone number, your mother’s name and addresses, your age and religious affiliation. How would you feel? Probably the same as me – very BAD. I don’t care whether Ms. O’Gara hates or likes Linux, or for that matter Ms. Jones as well. What I DO care is that the minimal journalistic standards should be adhered to. Which is why there is a need to let SYS CON, the company that published Ms. O’Gara’s article that this type of journalism is unacceptable. And if you are like myself, who have written for them in the past, perhaps it is time to reconsider writing for them in the future.

UPDATE: PJ herself wrote a response

UPDATE #2: Sys-Con is removing all of Ms. O’Gara’s content from their sites.

UPDATE #3: Here is an interview with the publisher of Sys-Con about the controversy (Among other tidbits mentioned, it seems that there were a few DDOS attacks on Sys-Con’s sites after the original article was published).

UPDATE: After exchanging emails with some people, it seems that the draft is being worked on in a closed fashion because of some litigation. However, once the first draft is finished, from that point on the discussion will be open. We’ll see what happens.

1. Created a blank install of Thunderbird on Linux.
2. Added my two accounts and set Thunderbird to store their messages in separate folders.
3. Copied over the old Mozilla mail into a new folder.
4. In Thunderbird, went into account properties and manually changed the location of each folder to the old Mozilla mail folders.

Fortunatly, Thunderbird and Mozilla use the same “mbox” format for storing email so that worked. However, I did lose all my settings which wasn’t such big deal. But don’t try it at home

P.S. In the process of installing Thunderbird, I also discovered that my Windows partition has failed:

Unfortunatly, it seems that my laptop’s hard drive is in the process of gracefully crashing, so I ordered a new one. For some strange reason the Linux portion of the drive is working perfectly fine. Go figure.

Following up on an earlier problem of sharing Thunderbird data between Windows and Linux, David Tenser has an article on his website explaining how to do it. The key is to install the Windows version FIRST. I will post whenever I get around to doing it.

The DLink DWL-122 USB 802.11b Adapter is based on the Intersil Prism 2.5 chipset. There are two options that I found to work: NdisWrapper which lets the native DLink Windows driver run in Linux, and Wlan-NG’s prism2_usb native driver for Prism 2.5 (there is also the Orinoco’s prism_usb driver but their USB support is not finished yet).

I originally ran the NdisWrapper driver but somewhere along the way, an upgrade Fedora Core 2 kernel broke NdisWrapper. So instead, I decided to try out the Wlan-NG driver. Funny enough I managed to get it to work exactly ONE time before it stopped working. This driver maintains a list of configuration files in the /etc/wlan directory with a separate wlan-networkname file for each SSID. The file I created for my network was not being read by the driver, thus not setting the correct WEP settings. However, the actual module and the driver worked. I managed to figure out how to get around the problem by plugging in my regular PCMCIA card which started using the prism2_cs driver and left some tell-tell signs in the log – it seems that a script called “wlan-ng” is needed to execute when the USB dongle in pluged in. However, it fails because the driver needs to be started first via a special command. Once I started the driver, I ran the script and everything worked. Here are step by step instructions:

1. Download the Wlan-NG distribution from Linux-Wlan.org and unpack into a directory of your choice. You DO NOT need the Kernel source.
2. Go into the directory and run “make config”.
3. Choose “yes” for the _cs AND_usb driver and “no” for others (unless you need others). Leave the rest of the questions blank.
4. After this command is finished, run “make all” to compile the source.
5. After compilation is finished, run “make install” to install the modules (you need to be root to do that, use “su” or “sudo” if you are not).
6. Go to the “/etc/wlan” directory and copy the “wlan-DEFAULT” file to whatever SSID your network is using (wlan-SSID). Open the file in a text editor and add your network settings.
7. Insert the card into the USB slot. You should see something like this in the /var/log/messages file:

kernel: Writing 4096 bytes to ram @0x7e2ffe
kernel: Writing 4096 bytes to ram @0x7e3ffe
…
kernel: hfa384x_docmd: ctlx failure=REQ_FAILED
wlan.agent[7786]: Failed to enable the device, resultcode= implementation_failure .
wlan.agent[7786]: WLAN Could not bring up wlan0
kernel: hfa384x_drvr_start: cmd_initialize() failed, result=-5
kernel: prism2sta_ifstate: hfa384x_drvr_start() failed,result=-5

The error messages are normal, they are shown because the device needs to be turned on first. If you don’t see these messages at all, try removing and reinserting the adaptor. If that doesn’t help, run “/sbin/rmmod prism2_usb” and “/sbin/modprobe prism2_usb” to remove and reinsert the module.
8. Run “/sbin/wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable” as root. This command will turn on the radio in the adaptor. For some reason, it fails to do it automatically. You should received the following message:

message=lnxreq_ifstate
ifstate=enable
resultcode=success

9. Run command “cd /etc/pcmcia/” to switch to the PCMCIA directory.
10. Run command “./wlan-ng start wlan0 2>&1″ to start the adaptor. You should see the following message in your logs :

kernel: linkstatus=CONNECTED

11. Set the IP address of your adaptor via “/sbin/ifconfig wlan0 192.168.0.55″ command.
12. If you are using this network for sharing an Internet connection, than you need to add a default route via “/sbin/route add default gw x.x.x.x” where “x.x.x.x” is the IP address of your gateway.

UPDATE #1: After upgrading to Fedora Core 3 with the latest kernel, this adapter suddenly stopped working even with my procedure described above. Stayed tuned for more information.

I have using Intuit’s online version of TurboTax for the past few years to file my taxes. However, this was the first year I used it in Linux. Logically, since it is a web based application, I assumed that it will work fine under Linux. However, I was mistaken.

After going through the IRS FreeFile site I was redirected to Intuit’s own version of it called TaxFreedom.com. However, when I actually tried to start working on my taxes, I got the following message:

TurboTax for the Web does not work with the Web browser you are using. You must use one of the following supported browsers:
…

What followed was a list of various Internet Explorer versions and suprisngly Netscape and Safari. Armed with the knowledge that Mozilla’s browsers, I assumed that using the “User Agent Switching” feature in Opera would work. However, it still did not work.

Upon further digging with wget, I ran across a JavaScript file that TurboTax’s used to check browser versions. To my chagrin I found a comment inside the filw stating that “Unix/Linux browsers are not supported”. On the brighter side, I also found support for FireFox. Knowing that FireFox is basically identical on all platforms, I decided to try using Chris Pederick’s UserAgent Switcher extension for FireFox. I loaded it into my browser, set the user agent to “IE on Windows XP” and voila it worked. For a moment. Unfortunatly, TurboTax really thought that I was using IE and it tried loading ActiveX which of course did not work. At this point I decided that the best solution is faking Firefox on Windows which is clearly supported from the JavaScript file. I tried it and it actually worked!

To get TurboTax to work on your system, do the following:
1. Install FireFox if you haven’t already (for RPMs check pbone.net).
2. Install the User Agent Switcher extension (if you get security warning, follow the prompts to add the site to your list of trusted site for installing software).
3. Restart FireFox, and go to “Tools”, “User Agent Switcher”, “Options”, “Options”. In the options box choose “User Agents” and click “Add” to add a new agent with the following settings:

Description: FireFox 1.0 (Windows XP)
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041109 Firefox/1.0
App Name: Netscape
App Version: 5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041109 Firefox/1.0
Platform: Win32

4. Install Adobe Acrobat Reader and connect it to FireFoxif you want to print your return (also see this).

Leave a comment on this post or email me (blog /at/ shaftek [.] org) if you have comments or problems.

UPDATE: There is a poll at the TurboTax website for Linux users.

UPDATE #2: The User Agent Switcher extension only works on Firefox, not on Netscape or Mozilla Suite (thanks for Marc Langille for the information).

UPDATE #3: A user running SimplyMAPIS v2004.06 with FireFox 1.0 reported that my instructions did not help – TurboTax just hangs there without going anywhere. If anyone else is experiencing the same symptoms, please email me at blog /at/ shaftek [dot] org.

UPDATE #4: A user running on SUSE v9.1 reported problems with these instructions. A different workaround that worked for him was changing the “prefs.js” file and adding the following:

user_pref(“general.useragent.override”, “Mozilla/5.0
Windows Firefox 1.0; Actually running Linux!”);

I also had the pleasure of a very interesting tech support conversation with the bank:
Bank: “Sir, can you open IE for me.”
Me: “I am running a different browser”
Bank: “What browser are you running, sir?”
Me: “FireFox”
Bank: “Uhm, are you running Windows, sir?”
Me: “Nope”
Bank “Are you using a Mac, sir?”
Me: “No, I am running Linux”
Bank: “I am sorry sir, but I am not trained to support your configuration”

In my specific case, one of our servers running Fedora Core 2 somehow got its RPM database corrupted. The recommended remedy is running “rpm -vv –rebuilddb” to rebuild the RPM database from the sources. In our case it was so bad, that everything was corrupted. Luckily, Redhat systems run a cron job daily to record the list of all RPM packages in the system and place that in the “/var/log/rpmpckgs” file. So the solution was as follows:

1. Backup the /var/lib/rpm directory (tar -cf somefile /var/lib/rpm/).
2. Erase the RPM files (rm /var/lib/rpm/* -f).
3. Re-init the RPM database (rpm -vv –initdb).
4. Use a script written by Michael Fratoni to parse the package list and rebuild the DB.

The two problems that I had is figuring out that the “/var/lib/rpm” directory needed to be emptied AND that we didn’t have any RPM files on disk (which the script required). Some more patching of the script to download the files first via “wget” helped. The result – an hour of command line work and one recovered RPM database.

Today, I ran across the v1.0.0-rc1 beta version and I came away saying “wow”. This application is finally something that is really equivalent to the ZoneAlarm app I used in Windows AND is less cluttered as well. The application is really just a GUI interface to the underlying ip tables firewall but nevertheless the simplicity and elegance of the interface simply took my breath away.

The main application consists of three tabs: “Status”, “Events” and “Policy”. The “Status” tab has a list of all active connections for the system with port numbers, IP addresses and process names, which I REALLY liked since in ZoneAlarm only program icons were shown. In a way it was similar to the “netstat” command. There is also a list of network interface with STATISTICS!!! The “Events” and “Policy” tabs contain a list of blocked connections and firewall rules respectively and are very simply to use. There is also an easy wizard used to configure the firewall AND NAT capability similar to Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) in Windows. All of this in a package less then 1 MB in size and a window 1/4 of a normal screen! I love it already.

I really like this program, especially with the extra bells and whistles that appeal to the inner geek in me. And, even though this is a beta release, it feels much more stable and cleaner than the 0.9.3 “stable” I have been using until now. I am impatiently waiting for the final 1.0 release.

P.S. Did I mention that it’s open source (GPL) and free!!!