Nozell, rhymes with Oh Hell

Ubuntu/natty hangs when wifi enabled

April 28th, 2011

This evening I upgraded my hp2133 notebook from Ubuntu/Maverick to the new Natty. The upgrade went smoothly but now the system hangs about 2 minutes after Broadcom 4311 802.11a/b/g wifi is enabled.

Here is the bug report: BCM4311 wifi hangs hp2133 notebook after 2 minutes

Some suggestions from IRC are to try the bcmwl-kernel-source or linux-backports-modules-net-natty-generic packages.

Tags: ubuntu natty wifi broadcom
Posted in hp, hp 2133 | 3 Comments »

DreamPlug: misc info

April 19th, 2011

Someone asked for more info about the hw/sw as shipped with the DreamPlug:

root@morpheus:~# uname -a
Linux morpheus 2.6.33.6 #1 PREEMPT Tue Feb 8 03:18:41 EST 2011 armv5tel GNU/Linux
root@morpheus:~# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 9.04
Release:	9.04
Codename:	jaunty
root@morpheus:~# lshw
morpheus
    description: Computer
    width: 32 bits
  *-core
       description: Motherboard
       physical id: 0
     *-memory
          description: System memory
          physical id: 0
          size: 501MiB
     *-cpu
          physical id: 1
          bus info: cpu@0
     *-scsi
          physical id: 2
          bus info: usb@1:1.1
          logical name: scsi0
          capabilities: emulated
        *-disk:0
             description: SCSI Disk
             product: STORAGE DEVICE
             vendor: Generic
             physical id: 0.0.0
             bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0
             logical name: /dev/sda
             version: 9910
             size: 1886MiB (1977MB)
             capabilities: removable
           *-medium
                physical id: 0
                logical name: /dev/sda
                size: 1886MiB (1977MB)
                capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
              *-volume:0
                   description: Windows FAT volume
                   vendor: mkdosfs
                   physical id: 1
                   logical name: /dev/sda1
                   version: FAT16
                   serial: 020d-9082
                   size: 1885MiB
                   capabilities: primary fat initialized
                   configuration: FATs=2 filesystem=fat label=dream_kr
              *-volume:1
                   description: EXT3 volume
                   vendor: Linux
                   physical id: 2
                   logical name: /dev/sda2
                   version: 1.0
                   serial: cc90c161-81e2-4434-b39f-e61c8de21c6a
                   size: 1783MiB
                   capacity: 1783MiB
                   capabilities: primary journaled extended_attributes large_files recover ext3 ext2 initialized
                   configuration: created=2011-02-23 08:07:06 filesystem=ext3 label=dream_fs modified=2011-04-19 15:44:26 mounted=2011-04-19 15:44:26 state=clean
        *-disk:1
             description: SCSI Disk
             product: STORAGE DEVICE
             vendor: Generic
             physical id: 0.0.1
             bus info: scsi@0:0.0.1
             logical name: /dev/sdb
             version: 9910
             capabilities: removable
           *-medium
                physical id: 0
                logical name: /dev/sdb
  *-network:0
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: eth0
       serial: f0:ad:4e:00:71:ec
       size: 10MB/s
       capacity: 1GB/s
       capabilities: ethernet physical tp aui bnc mii fibre 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=mv643xx_eth driverversion=1.4 duplex=half firmware=N/A link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10MB/s
  *-network:1
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 2
       logical name: eth1
       serial: f0:ad:4e:00:71:ed
       size: 100MB/s
       capacity: 1GB/s
       capabilities: ethernet physical tp aui bnc mii fibre 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=mv643xx_eth driverversion=1.4 duplex=full firmware=N/A ip=192.168.1.231 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100MB/s
  *-network:2
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 3
       logical name: uap0
       serial: 00:24:23:33:eb:4c
       capabilities: ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes ip=192.168.3.1 multicast=yes
  *-network:3 DISABLED
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 4
       logical name: pan0
       serial: 92:53:b4:db:b1:5b
       capabilities: ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A link=yes multicast=yes

Tags: dreamplug, linux, lsb, lshw, ubuntu
Posted in DreamPlug, linux | 1 Comment »

DreamPlug: Idles 7-8 watts

April 18th, 2011

I borrowed the a Kill-A-Watt device from the local library and plugged the DreamPlug into it.

Here are my unscientific observations.

idle with no devices except a NIC, wifi, bluetooth: 7 to 8 watts
idle with no devices except a NIC: 7 to 8 watts — that was unexpected
CPU at ~80% scp’ing a large file to internal disk: 9 watts
CPU at ~80% scp’ing a large file to external, powered eSATA disk: 9 watts
idle with external unpowered 320G ‘laptop’ USB disk: 11 watts

Powertop didn’t have much in the way of suggestions that affected power.

Tags: dreamplug, linux, power
Posted in DreamPlug, linux | No Comments »

DreamPlug: no support for nfs-kernel-server

April 18th, 2011

The folks on reddit were asking about NFS performance on the DreamPlug so I installed nfs-kernel-server. Unfortunately the Ubuntu kernel shipped with the DreamPlug doesn’t support NFS:

root@morpheus:~# /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart * Stopping NFS kernel daemon [ OK ] * Unexporting directories for NFS kernel daemon... [ OK ] * Not starting NFS kernel daemon: no support in current kernel. root@morpheus:~#

So if you want to use NFS (and don’t want to rebuild the kernel), you’ll have to use unfs3, a usermode version of NFS. It doesn’t support file locking nor wildcards for hostnames in /etc/export.

Tags: dreamplug, nfs
Posted in DreamPlug, linux | No Comments »

DreamPlug: motion activated webcam

April 14th, 2011

The webcam tool ‘motion‘ is pretty nice, but it needs some tweaks to the base Ubuntu/Jaunty running the DreamPlug.

Do this:

Enable the motion daemon. sudo emacs /etc/default/motion and set start_motion_daemon=yes
Allow for non-localhost access to the web interfaces. sudo emacs /etc/motion/motion.conf and change the lines to match: webcam_localhost off and control_localhost off
Create the default directory to hold the jpg and swf files. sudo mkdir /tmp/motion && sudo chown motion.motion /tmp/motion
Restart the motion daemon. sudo /etc/init.d/motion restart
Fire up a browser and point it to the DreamPlug’s port 8080 (say http://morpheus.local:8080) and then follow the link to config then list. From there you’ll probably need to set auto_brightness to on.
Now look at the video on port 8081 (say http://morpheus.local:8081)

After a while of it running, you don’t need the browser to be on the page, take a look in /tmp/motion to find all the JPG images and SWF ‘movie’ files. Eventually I’ll probably change the directory to live on one of the USB disks…

Tags: jaunty, motion, tweak, ubuntu, webcam
Posted in DreamPlug, linux | No Comments »

My PlugComputer datacenter

April 14th, 2011

My PlugComputer datacenter, originally uploaded by marcn.

Tags: dreamplug, sheevaplug
Posted in DreamPlug, General, photos, SheevaPlug | No Comments »

dreamplug

April 13th, 2011

My Dreamplug from Globalscale Technologies finally arrived yesterday and I’m just getting around to dig into it.

Things I’ve noticed:

Shipped with Ubuntu/Jaunty preinstalled. Root password: nosoup4u
kernel:
Linux ubuntu 2.6.33.6 #1 PREEMPT Tue Feb 8 03:18:41 EST 2011 armv5tel GNU/Linux
Misc system info: /proc/meminfo,/proc/cpuinfo, dmesg and lsmod
Only port open is ssh
The dreamplug starts up as an open wifi access point that will route through either eth0 of the wired network or a ppp0 device. It is named DreamPlug-uAP-{last two octects of the uap0 MAC address} ie: DreamPlug-uAP-eb4c
/etc/rc.local runs a script in ~root/init_setup.sh(!) It sets up the wifi as an access point, configures iptables for ip masquerade/ip forwarding, enables bluetooth and plays with the LED light brightness. See: init_setup.sh
They didn’t clean up .history — lots of interesting stuff in there! Grab a copy before you do any commands as root. I lost the first 34 commands and curious what else they were doing. See: history.txt
Some commands they used and places to check for changes from default values:

– uaputl sys_config
– cp -rf /mnt/uaputl /usr/bin/uaputl
– vi /sbin/wlan.sh
– vi /etc/usbmount/usbmount.conf
– mocp /media/usb1/EyesOnMe.mp3 (someone’s favorite song, it gets played a number of times)
– vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf
– vi /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
– cat /proc/asound/card0/codec
– cat /proc/asound/card0/usbbus
– cat /proc/asound/card0/usbid
– cat /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/info
– vi /etc/ld.so.conf.d/libasound2.conf
– vi /etc/java-6-openjdk/sound.properties
– speaker-test
– vi /etc/mke2fs.conf +5
– vi /etc/asound.conf
– arecord -f dat -D hw:3,0 -d 30 foo.wav
– arecord -f dat -D hw:0 -d 30 foo.wav
– arecord -f dat -D hw:1,0 -d 30 foo.wav
– cat /proc/asound/cards
– arecord -l
– vi /etc/asound.conf
– mocp BuzzingBee.wav
– mv /etc/asound.conf /etc/asound1.conf
– vi /etc/modprobe.conf
– sudo apt-get install snd_pcm_dmix
– vi /etc/asound1.conf
– cp -rf /etc/asound1.conf /etc/asound.conf
– play /home/havana.wav
– vi /etc/udhcpd.conf
There are two kernel modules (mcypt.ko & sd8xxx.ko) sitting in ~root/ On how to use them (not that I’ve tried yet), try here on openplug.org. See: mcypt.ko and sd8xxx.ko
Packages installed by default: dpkg.txt
Things to do:
~~– apt-get update && apt-get upgrade (carefully don’t trash possibly changed config files)~~
~~– install emacs (sudo apt-get install emacs)~~
~~– change password~~
~~– create user accounts~~
~~– add users to sudousers (visudo)~~
~~– install ssh keys (ssh-copy-id user@ubuntu.local)~~
~~– change the hostname from ubuntu.local to morpheus.local (to go with my SheevaPlug named lordshiva.local) (edit /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts)~~
– play with USB webcam & motion
– setup ftp/nfs for local file sharing
– carefully consider upgrading to more recent versions
– look at using as a wifi client
– try pairing bluetooth headset
– try pairing android phone — file transfers? remote control?
– install cups
– install gnump3d (needs make)
– install munin to monitor performance (is this going to kill my
internal sd storage?)