Although I was away for a week, I managed to get a few things accomplished over the weekend. I’ll go ahead and relist my list of things to do now and then add some comments about them below…
- install VirtualBox (done but not running/needs configuration)
- install VMWare Workstation (I have a license for either 6.0 or 6.5 on ebay for linux x64 a while back for $5, I was the only one who bid. I have the iso somewhere on one of my drives)
- mount all my ntfs drives and setup nfs support (all done before I started writing this except for 2 folders I want mounted in specific places)
- test my remote and local network ssh login (should be setup already, except forwarding the port on the router)
- get Google Chrome working
- test audio and video playback (can I watch hulu?)
- get my VM’s to launch and successfully run programs (should be easy after installing the correct apps and configuring them, worried about the ATI drivers)
- install Firefox (my backup browser for when web pages don’t work in chrome)
- test remote access to FreeBSD for my mounted ntfs drives (I have a friend in Korea that is willing to help)
- begin converting my ntfs drives to a better FS
- convert my drives from MBR to GPT to utilize GUID’s
- find a port/package manager GUI interface for KDE
- eliminate all traces of Gnome from my computer (several packages I have installed have dependencies that have Gnome in the name, need to find out if they are necessary and nuke em if not!!)
- build my first kernel
- get wine installed and working (in case I have something that will refuses to run in a VM)
- either install some older DOS games (<—two different links there) or find something newer out there install and get them working (VM or wine, just for fun and to say “oh yeah I love that game, I still it installed on my system…”)
- get Xorg port forwarding to work with cygwin.
- setup a respectable backup system (currently my backup drive turned into emergency storage when I had a few HDD’s all fail within weeks of each other last year, now I have new drives and enough storage space, I even copied the data off the external backup, but have not yet done a backup of FreeBSD. Might make this item number one!!)
- get java working (part of getting hulu to run)
- get flash working (part of getting hulu to run)
I guess I’ll start at the top.
1. 75% in progress, troubleshooting and more testing needed. I have gotten my user added the the “VirtualBox” user group, but I get this error when I try to execute VirtualBox from the command line ”VirtualBox: supR3HardenedExecDir: couldn’t read “”, errno=2 cchLink=-1“ I tried loading VirtualBox from KDE and it was loading for about 12 seconds then nothing happend, also it did not install a manual page. I’ll have to do some forum surfing to figure this one out. this exact error is referrenced in the FreeBSD handbook noting that it should only occur if you are using an older version on VirtualBox.
2. 0% not started. no updates yet, holding off till I get some of these other tasks complete.
3. 100% complete. everything is automounting at bootup and it is doing it where I want it to.
4. 100% complete. I am working almost exclusively via ssh now and can connect to it remotely as tested via an Android cell phone ssh client (props to connectbot)
5. 10% in progress, researched only. Chrome can be installed as a Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE, or Fedora package, I just need to set my system up to handle RPMs and I might be able to get it to install, hopefully the newest version will work easier than last august when everyone was trying to hack the install to make it work, especially since every forum I went to never had a successful complete port available and there were no posts from 2010.
6. duplicate issue. going to delete this one, as #19 and #20 pretty much sum it up.
7. 30% in progress, trouble shooting and additional testing required. as noteded else where VirtualBox is installed but not able to run, and I have not started on VMWare.
8. 90% complete. Firefox 3.0.14 is installed and running. this appears to be the newest version available for FreeBSD according to the ports tree, as FreeBSD does not get listed on the Mozilla Download Page. Ha HA the jokes on me, when 3.6 came out they moved it to /usr/ports/www/firefox and left 3.0 in the /usr/ports/firefox3 folder, so I apparently have installed the older version… now I have to uninstall it and install the newer one…
9. 90% in progress, trouble shooting and more testing needed. self testing shows that a user is able to ssh in and access the drives, but is not able to ftp in and access the drives. I used “sudo ln -s /mnt/<directory> /home/<user>/<directory>” I haven’t used links much and need to see if the -s (symbolic) is what is preventing the user from accessing the data via ftp.
10. 0% not started. no updates yet, holding off till I get some of these other tasks complete.
11. 20% in progress, 1 out of 5 drives is currently running with GPT. the new 1.5TB drive was setup with GPT when installed into the system. the new 500GB drive (FreeBSD boot drive) is still MBR as the FreeBSD fdisk application did not have an option for setting the drive boot record to GPT, although I have found documentation on converting the FreeBSD boot drive to GPT.
12. 0% in progress, initial research turned up nothing useful.
13. -30% not started, situation worsening, additional packages labeled as “gnome-xxxx” or “xxxxx-gnome” have been added as dependencies during other package installations. 
14. 10% in progress, initial research has turned up useful information; however I am not currently in a possition to proceed.
15. 0% not started. no updates yet, holding off till I get some of these other tasks complete.
16. 0% not started. no updates yet, holding off till I get some of these other tasks complete, will require at least one of #’s 1, 2, 7, or 15 to be complete before work can begin.
17. 0% not started. no updates yet, holding off till I get some of these other tasks complete, not a priority and very near the bottom of the list of things to do.
18. 20% in progress. I know it is not recommended for backups, but I have rsync installed and am looking into using it. I will continue to look for alternatives; however I like the this setup. I would like to have the system fully setup before I start making backups, but I will probably get this completed in the next 48-72 hours, even if just running it with rsync.
19. 60% in progress, I thought I had it installed, but when I went to the test if you have java installed page of www.java.com it failed to test my java installation (might need to add the plugin for firefox, will check); however the java download page only lists “Windows, Mac OS, and Linux” as OS choices, so I will have to do more research.
20. 40% in progress, I thought I had it installed, but when I went to hulu it told me I need java 10.0.22, also amd.com told me I need the flash plugin installed; however again there is no FreeBSD listing on the download page as a supported OS, so I will have to do more research.
21. 100% complete. (I know I added this one) get Yakuake working in KDE, well I did a “sudo pkg_add -r yakuake” and it started downloading, it has about 6 dependencies and those had about 150 dependencies, most of which I already had installed. the problem I saw was it force downloaded KDE 3.5 and all of it’s dependencies, I hope that doesn’t screw anything up. If I remember correctly from when KDE 4.0 first came out they specifically named the port KDE4 instead of just KDE so that there would not be conflicts on systems that had both versions installed. after it finished I ran a “sudo pkgdb -F” it found a lot of stale dependencies and fixed them, one thing I noticed fly by was firefox 3.0.## which tells me I need to check my firefox and see if it is 3.0 or 3.6…
22. 10% researched only. Get Picasa installed and working, this will be just like chrome and will require using RPM packages.
Ok, so my FreeBSD box boots, I have the beastie to welcome me to my system, KDE launches when I type startx, my mouse and KB both work from the console and in KDE, and my system is nearly completely up to date. All looking good so far, now I need to get some things working in KDE, I am not sure if I want to install the ATI drivers… it always leads me back to the dreaded “blank black screen” so I may hold out on doing that, as the last time I installed them I had to do a reinstall of the system to get booted again. Although I may not have to worry about that since I have KDE setup to load only when I tell it to.
The first thing I noticed is there is no GUI package management system, I do not mind running it from the console, in fact I may just prefer it; however I do not like not having the option to do so. so here is a list of things I need to do to get everything where I want it… (not in any particular order)
- install VirtualBox (done but not running/needs configuration)
- install VMWare Workstation (I have a license for either 6.0 or 6.5 on ebay for linux x64 a while back for $5, I was the only one who bid. I have the iso somewhere on one of my drives)
- mount all my ntfs drives and setup nfs support (all done before I started writing this except for 2 folders I want mounted in specific places)
- test my remote and local network ssh login (should be setup already, except forwarding the port on the router)
- get Google Chrome working
- test audio and video playback (can I watch hulu?)
- get my VM‘s to launch and successfully run programs (should be easy after installing the correct apps and configuring them, worried about the ATI drivers)
- install firefox (my backup browser for when web pages don’t work in chrome)
- test remote access to FreeBSD for my mounted ntfs drives (I have a friend in Korea that is willing to help)
- begin converting my ntfs drives to a better FS
- convert my drives from MBR to GPT to utilize GUID‘s
- find a port/package manager GUI interface for KDE
- eliminate all traces of Gnome from my computer (several packages I have installed have dependencies that have Gnome in the name, need to find out if they are necessary and nuke em if not!!)
- build my first kernel
- get wine installed and working (in case I have something that will refuses to run in a VM)
- either install some older DOS games (<—two different links there) or find something newer out there install and get them working (VM or wine, just for fun and to say “oh yeah I love that game, I still it installed on my system…”)
- get Xorg port forwarding to work with cygwin.
- setup a respectable backup system (currently my backup drive turned into emergency storage when I had a few HDD’s all fail within weeks of each other last year, now I have new drives and enough storage space, I even copied the data off the external backup, but have not yet done a backup of FreeBSD. Might make this item number one!!)
- get java working (part of getting hulu to run)
- get flash working (part of getting hulu to run)
Sorry about not getting this up sooner, I thought I posted it before I went out of town last week, but I found it today sitting here the drafts section still needing some work…
So, I have gone through all my drivers for my wireless network card with the Realtek rtl8190p chipset, all but the windows XP driver will convert with ndisgen and all the ones that convert will load; however I never get a wlan0 or a ndis0 network interface in ifconfig. So, having gotten at least a device identification while using the Kubuntu live CD, I went ahead and tried using ndiswrapper, well, it does not work when in a live CD, requires several packages (which also requires an inet connection). I went ahead and installed Kubuntu 9.10, still no wlan0 in ifconfig; however it correctly identifies the card and the chipset in “lspci -v” so I have been setting the OS up for use, I bridged the wireless network connection from my laptop (which makes the inet not work really well on the laptop, but does allow the desktop to get online).
Well, when I installed the ATI drivers for my video card (a must when intending on using VMs) I caught the invisible mouse bug that has been plaguing Ubuntu since at leas v6 (forum posts) and apparently happens in Fedora with NVidia drivers as well. as best I could tell, only with KDE. Since I am very well attached to my KDE I really do not want to switch. So, I have been working without a visible mouse. I got the ndiswrapper up and running, installed ndisgtk so I could have a UI for ndiswrapper, and added the most recent windows x64 driver for my wireless card to the ndisgtk interface and then my system decided it did not want to work anymore. I could open a terminal and do a “ps” or an “ls” but anything else would hang (including shutdown, reboot, kill, sudo, and ifconfig commands) the inet stopped working and my mouse was invisible, so I rebooted.
This time my display would not activate at all. I waited 20 mins for it to come up, and nothing. at this point I am about to decide that using VMWare is not worth the hassle of getting a computer to work with Linux. I should stick to Virtualbox and Win7 both work just as well, Virtualbox newer versions have advanced 3D support and allow as many processor cores as you physically have (VMWare was limiting me to 2 per VM). The thing I was looking forward to the most about VMWare was the memory pooling, so you could load VMs who’s total RAM assigned was greater than the physical RAM on the machine, since it only gave RAM to a VM when it was needed.
So, now I am in Slax (booted off my USB stick) and have to make emergency repairs to my xorg.conf file (I assume it is the culprit at this point), because I had Kubuntu setup with no bootloader, since I was planning on VMing not multi-booting. Further updates to come… if I get Kubuntu to work, I’ll try BSD again on another HDD and see if anything I learned from Kubuntu helped. If not, I still have my HDD with Win7 sitting on the shelf here next to me.
************update about an hour later…***********
so the Slax Module kndiswrapper (=ndisgtk) was able to load the win XP x64 driver and identify that the device was present. when I clicked the configure network button, it popped up a message “Can’t Start the Network Configureation! No Interface Found”. now… I am starting to wonder if it is not the rtl8190p chipset that is causing my problem, as I have found it correctly identified in Fedora 12, KUbuntu 9.10, and Slax, yet none of them can activate the device for networking. I did note on another page (check the tags for rtl8190p) that I found a website that I think has posted a linux rtl8190 driver, but I am not 100% on that, and have no idea how to add it to the kernel without building my own. AND if I am going to build my own Custom Linux kernel for my machine, I’m gonna need a LOT more time… (when I get up and running on some OS again, and I get back here to add links to this post, I’ll put the link in for that website too).
*******update – an hour after that…*******
Right, thoroughly upset with Ubuntu right now, will not even boot into single user mode, I tried removing the xorg.conf file and still nothing, normal or in single user mode. I can (depending on how my wife reacts to the Cat cable running from her laptop (read “used to be mine”) out of the bedroom, across the hall, and over to the other side of the livingroom…) keep my laptop in bridged mode, I’ve been tinkering and as long as I don’t reboot or touch anything on it (she does not have admin rights and is still in Win7) inet is working on both machines. I only have about 30 more days before I am moving into a new apt (I hope, they still have not called to tell me my application is approved, I don’t know any reason why it wouldn’t, but it normally takes them an hour or 2 when I have gone to other apts, but this place has had 5 days already…) and in the new apt, the router and computer will be side by side, or close enough that you’d never see the cable! so no more wireless needed, until I relocate again…
Anyway, the point of all that ^^^^^ is that I am going to kill KUbuntu and put FreeBSD 8.0 back on my machine…
(I’ll add links after I get a working/bootable computer again)
First, I went with Occam’s razor on my ATI driver issue. after reading close to 20 web pages (mostly forum posts, but some blogs too) and came up with renaming the xorg.conf file and rebooting… This got me up and working again, now I just need to check and find out if it is still using the ATI drivers (I think not, but I’ll get there sooner or later… not on the top of my list of things to do, considering my leg). So, I’ll get back to that later. Now, on to a very popular topic, the Apple iPad, I love the jokes, made many of my own, but all things considered, I won’t be buying one unless the price drops significantly. Else maybe when the gen 2 comes out. My main complaints are the same as most everyone else. No flash support pretty much kills it, I mean that covers nearly 50% of the web, and closer to 70% of the websites I frequent. Not that I like having to deal with flash on websites, but there are just too many web pages that will not function at all without flash that I find it to be a major FAIL on any business to not support flash at this point in time. The multitasking issue is another big one for me, as on my computer I frequently have 20 or so different windows open (mostly web pages) sometimes as many as 30 web pages plus 3 or 4 other programs. Now I understand this allows the system to devote 100% of it’s processing power to the app you are currently using, but most of the things I leave open need constant, even if its once every 10 seconds, attention from the OS/CPU. Last complaint… NO E-INK!!!
Now for some good things, I think the price is great for what you get, the storage sizes are fantastic at those prices, they included bluetooth which although I use it semi-regularly with my current devices I find it to be one of those Boy Scout things you need, in order to “be prepared” at all times. The battery life, well I’ll believe it when I see it. a 1 GHz processor is also fantastic, although not unheard of, nor top of the line. I like the fact they kept the iphone’s compass, accelerometer, it auto detects the ambient light to auto-adjust the back lighting (I hope), it supports 720p and can output 576p via component cables. So there are a lot more good things than bad, but for a WEB and ebook reader (the things I see as it’s main purpose) I think it just plain fails by not supporting flash. Now if Google can get it’s chrome browser on it, then I may just be tempted to get one. Else I am holding out for a Android/Chrome OS tablet that’ll rock my socks off…
