eRacks Systems Tech Blog
Open Source Experts Since 1999
Linux Mint 21.1 (Vera) is Now Available with eRacks Systems.
Linux Mint 21.1 “Vera” was released on December 20, 2022, a full 14 days after the beta appeared. The popular Ubuntu-based distribution’s intuitive desktop environments make it especially popular among newcomers to Linux.
Linux Mint 21.1 code name “Vera”, brings several interface changes including a cleaner desktop with more vibrant colors. Vera also sees the arrival of more controls in the update, driver, and software managers. New system sounds, ISO tools, and mouse pointers round out this update to the popular Linux distribution.
Let’s see what new Linux Mint 21.1 has in its store for users.
Linux Mint
Linux Mint is one of the most successful distributions based on Ubuntu. And with the number of Ubuntu derivatives out there, that’s saying something. Linux Mint must be doing a lot of things right—at least, according to its passionate user base.
Linux Mint is focused on desktops and laptops. It provides customized desktop environments with a choice of Cinnamon, Xfce, and Mate. It has the Snap store disabled by default; a move first made in Linux Mint 20.
Linux Mint doesn’t have a server version. Its purpose is to provide a simple, intuitive, attractive desktop Linux experience for its users, especially newcomers to the Linux world. The Linux Mint team want a mac or Windows user to be comfortable with Linux Mint within a short time.
Linux kernel
The release will continue to use the Linux 5.15 LTS kernel under the hood, based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
A Refreshed User Interface
When you first boot into the desktop, you should quickly notice the new look of the cursor. It features the new Bibata theme by default.
The cursor icon theme inventory has new options like Yaru, Breeze, and GoogleDot along with the traditional DMZ theme.
Users will also find a unique set of app icon themes to choose from in addition to the traditional Mint-X, Mint-Y, and Mint-Legacy themes. This includes Papirus, Breeze, Numix, and Yaru.
Another interesting thing you may notice is the default accent color isn’t the traditional green anymore, and that’s because the desktop theme is now switched to Aqua. The accent color library offers more vibrant colors and gives the desktop a clean and attractive look.
For those who want the legacy look back, there exists a “Mint-Y-Legacy” option in the theme options.
Moreover, the Computer, Home, Networks, and Trash icons previously visible on the desktop are removed by default and can be accessed in the file manager. The Home folder icon is displayed on the panel instead. If you want to return the old arrangement, you can do so by heading to the system preferences.
Cleaner Desktop
The desktop has been purged. The “home”, “computer”, “trash”, and “network” icons have been removed.
Clicking the folder icon pinned to the panel opens your “home” directory in the Nemo file browser, so it is still only one click away. Counter-intuitively, its tooltip reads “Files”, but it gives you a fast way to get to Nemo and your “home” directory all in one.
The “computer”, “trash”, and “network” locations are available through the “Go” menu in Nemo or by searching in the start menu.
Files that you copy or save to “~/Desktop” still show up on the desktop, as do mounted devices.
There’s the usual selection of new background wallpapers. You’ve got access to the generic Linux Mint wallpapers, the backgrounds from the Linux Mint 21 Vanessa release, and the new Vera-specific backgrounds.
It’s a stunning collection of images by skilled photographers. Whoever curated these backgrounds did a great job too.
There’s a new “Show Desktop” button at the extreme right-hand end of the panel. It hides all open windows, clearing the desktop with a single mouse click.
It’s practically invisible, but it’s there. Point at it, and you’ll see its tooltip.
A Modern Mouse Pointer
The default mouse pointer has changed. Linux Mint 21.1 uses “Bibata Modern Classic”, which has a gently rounded shape without a tail.
A Modern Mouse Pointer
With all of these cosmetic tweaks, what looks good is subjective. If you don’t like the defaults, you can change them in a flash to something more agreeable to you.
New System Sounds
The system sounds have been updated. As before, the volume can be adjusted, and individual sounds can be switched on and off if they’re too distracting.
A Liberated Driver Manager
The Driver Manager application has been changed to run in user mode. This means it’ll run without the need for a password.
It searches your computer for drivers that are installed and in use, then lists them. It’ll also identify missing drivers and offer to install them.
Our test machine didn’t require any additional drivers, but it’s nice to know that you’ve got a helping hand if your computer does need them.
Enhanced Update Manager
A similar amount of assistance and hand-holding is available in the Update Manager. It makes what can become a complicated task very easy. You can select the packages that you want to update, and exclude those you’re not interested in at this time.
Significantly, support for updating flatpaks has been added.
More Control in Software Manager
If a flatpack is available for an application, the Software Manager let’s you choose between installing a DEB “System Package” or a flatpack.
It’s not the flashiest software store application, but it looks good and works well. You can find what you want quickly from a huge choice of software, and you get a choice of install types, too. I’ll take that over eye candy any day.
New USB Tools
As you’d expect USB Image Writer tool lets you select an ISO image and the USB stick you want to write the image to. It also has a “Verify” button which lets you verify the authenticity of the ISO image before you burn it, which is convenient.
The USB Stick Formatter tool formats USB sticks for you. You can pick a USB stick, set its device name, and choose a file system. There are four file systems supported:
- FAT32
- exFAT
- NTFS
- ext4
Other improvements
The code which lets you remove applications from the main menu was reviewed and password prompts were removed in situations where administrative permissions weren’t required.
Removing a Flatpak will no longer require a password to be entered. Same goes for simple shortcuts and local applications (i.e. applications which aren’t installed system-wide).
Synaptic and the Update Manager will now also ask pkexec to remember your password so you won’t have to enter it every single time if you perform multiple operations.
Following the upstream deprecation of apt-key, the Software Sources received changes to rework the way it handles PPA keys.
When a PPA is added its key is now only accepted for the PPA itself, not globally for all APT Sources.
Continuous integration for all Linux Mint projects moved from Circle CI to Github Actions. This gives the development team greater control over docker.
Documentation was written and added to the User Guide to cover the following topics:
- How to reset a forgotten password
- How to have Bluetooth disabled at boot
- How to make a Windows live USB stick or a multiboot USB stick
Summary of changes
- First point release of Linux Mint 21, based on Ubuntu 22.04.1 release
- Linux Kernel 5.15 LTS
- Cinnamon 5.6.4 desktop
- Xfce 4.16 desktop
- MATE 1.26 desktop
- Friendly driver manager
- Cleaner default desktop view with fewer icons
- Default theme changes to “Mint-Y-Aqua” from the green-based icons
- New cursor theme: Bibata (one of the best cursor themes in Linux)
- A bunch of stunning wallpapers
- And an array of bug fixes
Including these, there are lot of new features in this new release. Start using new Linux Mint 21.1 to get the full experiences.
To get the Linux Mint 21.1 on your system, simply upgrade the existing Linux Minx 20.x or do a clean install.
Upgrading to Linux Mint 21.1
Upgrading to Linux Mint 21.1 is simple. Long-time users of the distro will be familiar with the steps needed to do so:
- Use the Timeshift app to make a system snapshot
- Update any/all Cinnamon spices/applets/themes
- Open Update Manager and install any updates
- Select the “Upgrade” option in the ‘Edit’ menu of Update Manager
- Hit Install
Once all updates are downloaded, unpacked, and installed it’s advised to restart the computer. A reboot ensures all changes take effect, and that the system comes back-up functioning as intended by Linux Mint’s developers.
As mentioned, Linux Mint 21.1 includes a number of visual changes and new artwork. Anyone who makes the upgrade but doesn’t like the new folder icons or aqua color accents can revert to Linux Mint’s older look using the Welcome app available in the applications menu.
Before upgrading or clean install, make sure your system meets the minimum requirements. The system requirements are as follows.
System requirements:
- 2GB RAM (4GB recommended for a comfortable usage).
- 20GB of disk space (100GB recommended).
- 1024×768 resolution (on lower resolutions, press ALT to drag windows with the mouse if they don’t fit in the screen).
Conclusion
If your system doesn’t meet the minimum system requirements, or you need clean pre-installed new system, you can always get one from eRacks Systems store as pre-configured with Linux Mint 21.1.
Asif Raihan December 28th, 2022
Posted In: Laptop cookbooks, Linux, Mint, New products, Operating Systems, Upgrades
Tags: Desktop OS, Laptops, linux, LTS, Mint, multimedia, New products, Open Source, operating system
Ubuntu 22.10 “Kinetic Kudu” is here!
Ubuntu 22.10, codenamed “Kinetic Kudu”, is here with eRacks Systems. This release continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open-source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, partnering with the community and our partners, to introduce new features and fix bugs.
Ubuntu Desktop 22.10 users will benefit from the refinements in GNOME 43, including GTK4 theming for improved performance and consistency. Quick Settings now provide faster access to commonly used options such as wifi, bluetooth, dark mode and power settings.
Since Ubuntu 22.10 “Kinetic Kudu” will be supported for 9 months until July 2023, it was released to the wider public on Oct 20, 2022. Here’s in short, what you can expect from the Ubuntu 22.10 release.
Linux kernel
Ubuntu 22.10 is shipped with the new 5.19 Linux kernel that brings the most relevant features (in addition to many other new features, new drivers, improvements and fixes.
GNOME 43
In Ubuntu 22.10, GNOME 43 is the base desktop version. GNOME 43 is an impressive release in terms of features and work around the GTK4 and libadwaita. A lot of features which was missed to reach in Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, finally arrived in this version.
Qemu
Qemu was updated to version v7.0.0 which brings many major and minor improvements.
libvirt
Tracking the releases of libvirt continuously version v8.6.0 is now provided in Ubuntu 22.10 which – among many other fixes, improvements and features.
Docker.io 20.10.16
This new version contains fixes to avoid potential lock issues and update its dependencies internally.
Security Improvements
AppArmor gained support for restricting access to unprivileged user namespaces. This allows a system administrator to configure their system so that only applications and services which are confined by an appropriate AppArmor profile can use this feature.
Summary of the key changes in Ubuntu 22.10
- Linux Kernel 5.19
- GNOME 43
- Pipewire by default
- IWD is replacing wpa_supplicant
- KDE Plasma 5.25 in Kubuntu
- LXQt 1.1.0 in Lubuntu
- Firefox 106
- LibreOffice 7.4
- Thunderbird 102
Including these, there are a lot of improvements. To experience the full improvements, you need to use one. You can download an installation file directly from here, or get a pre-installed ready to use system from eRacks Systems’ Store.
Asif Raihan October 28th, 2022
Posted In: Linux, LiveCD, New products, Open Source, Operating Systems, ubuntu, Zenbook
Tags: Laptops, linux, New products, Rolling Release, ubuntu, Zenbook
eRacks/ZENBOOK15.UHD With Open Source: Powerful And Elegant
Introducing eRacks/ZENBOOK15.UHD 4D resolution, high power Ultrabook with Linux or BSD operating system
We wanted to start the month in style. So, we thought what better way there is than introducing a great looking Ultrabook with powerful specification? Then the light bulb went on: “eRacks/ZENBOOK15.UHD”.
This really stylish and elegant eRacks/ZENBOOK15.UHD laptop that comes with a screen resolution of 3840 by 2160 — four times FHD (full high-definition) resolution – really started looking mighty good.
This Ultrabook by Asus can be delivered by eRacks with up to 24 Gigabytes of RAM and up to 1 or even 2 Terabytes of SSD hard disk space. As a matter of fact this ultrabook has been ranked the number one among all of ultrabooks that you can find online, this is according to gadget reviews, which is a good indication that it will really serve it’s purpose and will cope up with your expectation. With its 15.6 inch 4K Ultra High Definition IPS screen and a view angle of about 170 degrees, eRacks/ZENBOOK15.UHD is really a great looking and powerful Ultrabook.
As with all eRacks Systems products, this elegant looking Ultrabook will be delivered with your choice of Open Source operating system & software pre-installed and pre-configured. The operating system can be any flavor of Linux or BSD (We can even do other OSes like Haiku, etc on request). We will install and configure the OS fully before packaging your Ultrabook and sending it off your way.
In fact, you can be sure that with your Ultrabook ordered through us, you will receive a powerful open source system, configured to the highest specifications according to your requirements. And you can also be sure that no one else can or will offer anything close to the laptop you will get from us.
So, why not expand your laptop computing power to the next level with us. Contact us and ask about eRacks/ZENBOOK15.UHD. We’ll be happy to hear from you.
info@eracks.com
Ron October 8th, 2015
Posted In: FreeBSD, Laptop cookbooks, New products, News, Products, Upgrades, Zenbook
Tags: 4K, BSD, FLOSS, laptop, linux, Open Source Computing, Powerbook, UHD, Ultrabook, Zenbook
easy steps towards a healthy diet
Want to eat a healthy diet? Nutritionist Susannah Lawson explains why it’s important to make the right food choices and suggest some easy ideas for healthy eating. Try out phenq.
You may have heard the phrase “you are what you eat”. But what does it mean – and is it true? Perhaps more importantly, what should you eat to feel and become healthier?
Your body is made from the nutrients you consume – proteins, carbohydrates, essential fats, vitamins, minerals and water. These nutrients help your body renew itself naturally – for example, your skin renews itself in 21 days and your bones can repair themselves in six weeks. In five years, you will be an almost completely new person!
However, if you don’t eat healthy food with the right nutrients, your cells won’t reproduce as well or as accurately. Not eating enough of these key nutrients can cause a variety of symptoms – from premature ageing and dull, dry skin, to anxiety and depression; or frequent infections and digestive issues to poor memory and low energy.
The good news is that by taking some simple steps to have a healthy diet, you can help look after your body – and feel and function better than ever. These are the best weight loss pills | firstpost.
1. Balance your nutrients
Why?
You need a mix of the following nutrients to keep everything working well:
- protein (eg meat, fish, soya, dairy products, nuts/seeds) to build and repair body tissues
- carbohydrate for energy (slow-releasing and wholegrain sources are best for sustained energy)
- vitamins and minerals (vegetables and fruit to keep everything functioning)
How?
Help to maintain an ideal balance of these important nutrients by seeing your plate made up of this simple ratio: 25% protein; 25% slow-release carbs; and 50% vegetables, salad and fruit. Try out the latest phenq pills.
To help you get started, here are some healthy meal ideas for breakfast, lunch and dinner:
Breakfast
- Scrambled eggs, wholegrain toast, tomatoes, and avocado
- Cream/cottage cheese, oat cakes, watercress, and pear
- Plain yoghurt, low-sugar granola with chopped apple and berries
Lunch
- Prawn mayonnaise jacket potato and green salad
- Smoked salmon wholemeal bagel, with rocket and avocado
- Hummus pitta bread with carrot, cucumber and pepper sticks. This is the best testosterone booster.
Dinner
- Chicken breast, roast sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, and red cabbage
- Grilled steak, New potatoes, grilled mushrooms, and tomatoes
- Baked salmon and wholegrain pasta with spinach, broccoli, and pesto
- Halloumi kebab with brown rice, roast peppers, and courgettes
TOP TIP: If you’re a fan of food boxes, double check this ratio applies to the meals provided and top up the veg if necessary.
2. Refuel regularly
Why?
The meal ideas above provide a good balance of nutrients and ‘fuel’ to keep you full of energy throughout the day. Breakfast is particularly important – as the name suggests, you ‘break’ the night ‘fast’, which could mean 12 hours without food. You couldn’t drive your car without fuel in the tank, so don’t try to run your body on empty.
How?
Try to eat three balanced meals a day (see point 1). If you experience a dip in energy, have a snack mid-morning and mid-afternoon too.
Aim to choose healthier, nutrient-rich options such as an apple and chunk of cheese or a handful of unsalted nuts rather than biscuits, sweets or crisps. Check out these exipure reviews.
3. Not all fats are scary!
Why?
Believing all fat is bad or makes you fat is a myth. Yes, fried or processed fatty foods aren’t good for you. But essential fats – found in nuts, seeds and oily fish (eg salmon, mackerel, anchovies or sardines) – help to reduce your risk of cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, depression, eczema and arthritis. So, try to eat more!
How?
As long as you are not allergic, enjoy a handful of natural unsalted nuts or seeds daily (they make a great protein-rich snack or topping for cereal or salads). And aim to eat oily fish three times a week.
4. Stay hydrated
Why?
Your body is more than 60% water, so drinking water regularly will hydrate you and help you run more efficiently. Beware of drinking too much tea or coffee because they contain caffeine, which can be dehydrating as well as addictive.
How?
If you feel tired, drinking a glass of water can give you a lift. Also try putting a glass by your bed and drink it first thing, carry a water bottle with you or put it on your desk so it’s always close at hand, dilute fruit juices 50/50 with water and opt for herbal or fruit teas. This way you can quickly build up to the recommended 6-8 glasses a day.
5. Need a top up?
Why?
Even the best diet in the world is unlikely to give you all the nutrients you need, especially when you’re busy or during periods of ill health or stress. So, think about taking some supplements.
How?
During the summer months, we can naturally absorb Vitamin D via our skin from the sun. But to help support our immune systems during the dark winter months, every adult is now recommended to top up their Vitamin D levels. Take 25mcg of the D3 variety daily, from October to April.
During periods where you feel lacklustre or low in energy, a high quality daily multivitamin and mineral can also give you a boost.
Plus, if you don’t like oily fish, consider supplementing omega 3 essential fats.
6. Limit toxins
Why?
As important as getting the nutrients you need, is reducing the substances that can harm or deplete you. These include artificial food additives, processed fats and pesticides and too much alcohol, sugar and stimulants such as caffeine.
How?
Where possible, avoid processed foods and those made with refined ‘white’ flour or sugar (the refining process removes the beneficial nutrients). Easy wins are to swap in brown rice for white rice, and wholegrain for white bread.
Aim to steam, grill, bake or steam-fry your food rather than deep fry.
To help limit your intake of alcohol, consider only drinking moderate amounts (1-2 glasses) at the weekend, and intersperse each drink with a glass of water.
joe October 20th, 2013
Posted In: How-To, Laptop cookbooks, New products, News, Open Source, Products, ubuntu
Tags: Dual-boot, EFI, FHD, FullHD, Mint, rEFInd, rEFIt, ubuntu, UEFI
eRacks new website is now live!
eRacks Open Source Systems new website design
eRacks new website is officially live and fully functional! We completely redesigned the old website. We’ve added a ton of new products, including a custom line of high end gaming laptops.
Fremont, CA (PRWEB) January 14, 2013
Have a look at our Product Lines:
Product Showroom
About eRacks
eRacks strives to return the control of the IT department back to the business owner, by providing quality open source enterprise-level applications on easily-upgradable industry-standard hardware. eRacks believes businesses should not be required to rely on third-party closed-source software vendors
For More Information contact eRacks at info@eracks.com or visit http://www.eracks.com
Dennis
eRacks
Greg January 14th, 2013
Posted In: Laptop cookbooks, News, Open Source
Tags: eRacks, Laptops, New products, News
The Quest for a good Ubuntu netbook
We’ve had a long and arduous search for a usable resolution (at least 1366×768) portable netbook, that will run Ubuntu smoothly, and we’re pleased to report our findings! The MSI U230-040US netbook fulfills all our requirements without so much as a hiccup.
Most netbooks have a 1024 x 600 pixel display. This fails miserably with some applications that are designed for higher resolution, like Eclipse, for example. Working with Eclipse can be annoying enough, but in a lower resolution display, important fields in certain windows are unusable and almost completely hidden.
Portability is important and this system weighs in at 3.3 pounds. It’s got a good solid feel to it, and the display bends back to an angle of about 135 degrees. The keys are next to each other, not spaced out like the Sony Vaio. The netbook’s measurements are 11.71″(L) x 7.49″(D) x 0.55~1.22″(H).
This system passed all our tests and is available, as a complete dual boot system from eRacks, called the eRacks/CUMULUS. We’ve got Ubuntu and Windows 7 on this one.
The built-in Webcam is 1.3MP and works with Cheese Webcam Booth, both photo and video. There is a 4-in-1 Card Reader (XD/SD/MMC/MS), and three USB2.0 connections. Bluetooth is working without any special configurations.
I’ve set the processor for 800MHz at OnDemand. The other settings are Conservative, Performance, and Powersave with a higher 1.6GHz is available.
All-in-all this system gets top marks for usability and portability.
britta October 5th, 2010
Posted In: Laptop cookbooks, New products, ubuntu
eRacks Sony Laptop – Part 2 – Shrinking partitions & Installing Linux
eRacks Sony Laptop – Part 2 – Shrinking partitions & Installing Linux
Step 1 – back up Vista partitions
[joe@sony ~]$ sudo su
Password:
[root@sony joe]# fdisk /dev/sda
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 14593.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x200c5cbf
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 889 7138304 27 Unknown
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 * 889 4076 25600000 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 4077 4101 200812+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 4102 14593 84276990 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 4102 14593 84276958+ 8e Linux LVM
Command (m for help): q
[root@sony joe]# dd if=/dev/sda2 | gzip -9 – >vista.img
51200000+0 records in
51200000+0 records out
26214400000 bytes (26 GB) copied, 2384.53 s, 11.0 MB/s
[root@sony joe]# ls -l
total 6168412
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Desktop
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Documents
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Download
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Music
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Public
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Templates
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Videos
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 6310241019 2009-02-20 21:58 vista.img
[root@sony joe]# dd if=/dev/sda1 | gzip -9 – >recovery.img
14276608+0 records in
14276608+0 records out
7309623296 bytes (7.3 GB) copied, 739.479 s, 9.9 MB/s
[root@sony joe]# ls -l
total 12022456
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Desktop
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Documents
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Download
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Music
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Public
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 5988678705 2009-02-20 22:15 recovery.img
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Templates
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Videos
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 6310241019 2009-02-20 21:58 vista.img
[root@sony joe]# mv vista.img vista.img.gz
[root@sony joe]# mv recovery.img recovery.img.gz
[root@sony joe]# ls -l
total 12022456
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Desktop
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Documents
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Download
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Music
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Pictures
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Public
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 5988678705 2009-02-20 22:15 recovery.img.gz
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Templates
drwxr-xr-x 2 joe joe 4096 2009-02-20 03:05 Videos
-rw-r–r– 1 root root 6310241019 2009-02-20 21:58 vista.img.gz
[root@sony joe]#
Step 2: Boot from the Ubuntu CD and install Linux!
Previous: Part 1 – the OOB Experience
eRacks Sony Laptop – Part 3 – Virtual Windoze
joe June 9th, 2009
Posted In: Laptop cookbooks, Open Source, Products, Technology
Tags: laptop, linux, Notebook, Open Source, Sony, Technology, ubuntu, Windows Tax
Fedora and wireless with Prism54
I will relate a recent battle I had with a laptop that uses the Prism54 wireless chipset and runs Fedora 10. For quite some time, I could not get it to connect to a WPA protected network. With an open network, it would connect just fine. I didn’t bother with WEP. I wanted to find out what was causing it to fail with WPA.
This is an older eRacks CENTRINO laptop (Pentium M 1.6ghz, 1GB RAM and an 80GB hard drive.) This post will also hopefully help anyone else who has a laptop with the Prism54 chipset (mine specifically is a PrismGT mini-pci card.) Note that Prism54 is also available in PCI and USB wireless devices.
At first, I thought it might be a problem with the GNOME NetworkManager. So, I tried other methods of connecting, such as using the command line (for iwconfig/ifconfig), wicd, Wireless Assistant and WiFi Radar. Some of these seem to work better than others, but again, none would allow me to connect to my WPA protected network at home. Thus, it was time to dig deeper.
After some sifting through forum posts, blogs, and bugzilla, I finally came across something that might help. Apparently, the prism54 drivers have several different modules that are loaded. For some reason, there is a module (prism54), which might be an older version of the complete set, and then there are other separate ones: p54common, p54pci and p54usb. So in my case, it was loading prism54, p54common, and p54pci. According to what I have read, the prism54 module causes conflicts with the newer p54common and p54pci set. The suggestion for now is to add prism54 to the module blacklist, located in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist. You add the following entry at the bottom:
blacklist prism54
Once I did this and restarted networking, I could connect to my WPA-protected network using the default GNOME NetworkManager. All is well again in WiFi land.
Hopefully, this little jaunt with prism54 will be able to help someone else.
Matt March 13th, 2009
Posted In: How-To, Laptop cookbooks
How to Avoid Pain and Suffering when Upgrading Desktop-Oriented Linux Distributions
This article is geared toward eRacks customers who have a desktop or laptop system, i.e. a personal workstation. It is not intended to serve as a guide for customers wishing to upgrade a server.
With the above in mind, for those who use Linux on such a machine, your choice of distributions that cater to this niche is growing nicely. You have the “Big Boys” such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva or OpenSUSE, as well as a host of more specialized distributions, the main focus of most being on user friendliness and “up-to-dateness.” What this usually leads to is a faster upgrade cycle than what you would typically find on a server oriented distro such as Debian (stable), RedHat Enterprise, SuSE Enterprise or CentOS.
I myself have been tracking RedHat (including Fedora) since version 5.0, doing a mix of upgrades and fresh installs. I have also kept up with Ubuntu since 6.04, and have had similar experiences with it. I have found that one way of making regular upgrades easier is to keep a separate /home partition. This way, you have a choice of an upgrade or a fresh install, without losing valuable data.
My experience, and that of many other salty seasoned Linux gurus, is that upgrading from a previous version tends to be a bit messier and usually takes longer to do than a fresh install. This can be true, especially if you use third party repositories, if you install software not maintained by your distro package manager (DEB or RPM) or if you do a lot of tweaking. Doing so may leave you looking at a broken system when the upgrade finishes. For this reason, it is usually more desirable to do a clean installation and install your third party applications afterward.
How then to keep from losing your data? Many system admins would suggest the multiple partition method, which has been used on servers a lot, yet not so much on the desktop. The multiple partition method can have advantages and disadvantages, but since hard drives are so big these days, many of the disadvantages are no longer prevalent.
While most modern desktop distros have a default partitioning scheme that gives you just a swap partition (usually about 2x the amount of RAM, or physical memory) and a large root partition for everything else, most server configurations have multiple partitions for directories like /usr or /var, which can have many advantages. For example: if you wanted to have /usr mounted as read-only to prevent unauthorized system-wide software installs, if you wanted to keep /boot separate for a RAID array or if you wanted to keep /var and /tmp separate to avoid corrupting the core system files; these are all examples of why one might want to make use of multiple partitions. In this case, however, the partitioning must be very carefully planned according to the intended use of the server, what programs need to be installed, how many users will be logging in, etc.
Luckily, there is a happy medium that works well for desktops, and that is to use a swap partition with 2x the amount of RAM, a root partition for your operating system and a very large /home partition for all your data. When you do a fresh install, all you have to do is make sure you don’t format /home, and your data will be safe across installations. If you want to save any system-wide tweaks, you will, of course, also have to backup important configuration files and check them against their replacements, making changes where necessary.
In my case, I have a 120GB hard drive for Linux, which makes use of the following partition scheme:
20GB /
75GB /home
1GB /swap
14GB “other” (at times it has a Gentoo install, other times it has FreeBSD, depends on my mood…)
I have found through experience that this setup works well.
When I do an OS update, such as my recent one to Fedora 9, I usually backup important configuration files to /home, do a fresh install and finally install any third party programs I need.
In the past, when upgrading systems without doing a fresh install, things for me have tended to get rather wonky. However, I have recently tried upgrading Ubuntu, and I must say that the recently improved Upgrade Manager, a graphical front end to the apt-get dist-upgrade functionality, is a nice touch. It allows you to upgrade to the next version of Ubuntu, while still allowing you to run your system so you can go about your business as it downloads and installs all the packages. When it’s done, you simply reboot, and voila, new version! Upgrades on Fedora, by contrast, are still usually done by the tried and true method of booting the install disk and running the upgrade procedure. Fedora does have the capability to do upgrades using the yum package manager, but that functionality isn’t as mature as apt-get dist-upgrade, and thus is not for the faint of heart.
So now, what if you have an existing Linux installation utilizing only a single partition and you want to do a fresh install while keeping your data safe?
Of course, you could just back your data up to a large external hard drive, but not everyone has one at their disposal. In this case, what you could try is resizing your root partition, create a new partition for /home and copy your personal data to it before starting the upgrade. Then, just run through the installation as usual. This is, of course, only if you have enough space to resize. If not, you may still require an external drive, at least temporarily, to copy your data to before starting the installer.
If you want to make use of multiple partitions on a new eRacks system purchase, just ask for it during your order. This way, your system will be ready when the next OS update rolls around!
Matt
Matt June 27th, 2008
Posted In: How-To, Laptop cookbooks, Upgrades
FreeBSD 6.3 and 7.0 Installation on the Compal IFL90 Laptop
NOTE: Do NOT install the ports tree during the installation. We’re going to install the latest ports tree (complete with security updates) later on.
*** Step 1: Install FBSD 6.3 or 7.0
1. Insert the CD
2. Choose the standard install
3. When the installation is finished, you’re done!
*** Step 2: Installing the Nvidia Drivers
NOTE: The open source ‘nv’ driver doesn’t work on the GeForce 8 series of cards, so don’t even bother trying.
1. Type the command ‘sysconfig’ and install the ‘compat5x’ package via FTP. This is a pre-requisite for the nvidia driver package.
2. Download the FreeBSD x86 drivers from www.nvidia.com for the GeForce 8 series.
3. Untar, cd to the resulting directory and type the command ‘make install’
4. Type the command ‘nvidia-xconfig.’ You’ll get some errors about Gnome libraries not being installed, but it still manages to create a good xorg.conf anyway.
5. Open /etc/X11/xorg.conf and change the following:
In Section “Input Device:”
Change Option “Device” “/dev/sysmouse” to “/dev/psm0”
Change Option “Emulate3Buttons” “no” to “yes”
6. Test the xorg server by typing ‘startx’ and verify that you get a working display
7. Close xorg and pat yourself on the back for a job well done 😉
*** Step 3: Install the Ports Tree
1. Go to ftp.freebsd.org and download the latest 6.3 or 7.0 ports.tgz file (under /pub/releases/6.3 or /pub/releases/7.0 I believe, but I can’t remember exactly.)
2. Cd to /usr and extract ports.tgz
*** Step 4: Configuring the Soundcard
1. Edit the file /boot/loader.conf and add the line “snd_hda_load=”YES”
2. Reboot and grep dmesg for Realtek. If it shows up, try to play an MP3 to make sure sound is really working.
*** Step 5: Wireless Configuration
We no longer need to do anything. As of FreeBSD 7.0, the wpi driver works by default! Wireless will not work,
however, under 6.3
admin March 31st, 2008
Posted In: Laptop cookbooks