[conspire] iBook and Ubuntu/Kubuntu

Wed Oct 5 12:37:06 PDT 2005

If iwconfig says "no wireless extensions" for the interface, how do you 
set ESSID and the like?
-- 
"Consider that two wrongs never make a right, but that three do."
                                                       --National Lampoon

On Oct 5, 2005, at 11:35 AM, Calvin Wong wrote:

> ya. modprobe zd1211 on ubuntu is no problem but iwconfig won't show it.
> lsusb shows the card is zd1211, but iwconfig won't show.
>
> i don't knwo why mutt mutt config won't reply to the mailing list when 
> i press
> r, i have to look into that soon.
>
> calvin
>
> * Daniel Gimpelevich <daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us> 
> [2005-10-05 09:59:04 -0700]:
>
>> Both you and Calvin have sent a couple of replies off-list. I'm
>> guessing that was by mistake, so I'm taking the topic back on-list.
>> -- 
>> "No gnu's is good gnu's."   --Gary Gnu, "The Great Space Coaster"
>>
>> On Oct 5, 2005, at 7:51 AM, Ross Bernheim wrote:
>>
>>> On Oct 4, 2005, at 9:22 PM, Daniel Gimpelevich wrote:
>>>
>>>>> My experiences with putting Kubuntu 5.10 preview on a 12' 500 Mhz 
>>>>> G3
>>>>> firewire iBook
>>>>> have been mixed. Install went easily if a bit slowly.
>>>>>
>>>>> Kubuntu looks nice and works well except for a few things.
>>>>>
>>>>> First, usb thumb drive would not work.
>>>
>>> Fixed with dist-upgrade.
>>>
>>>>> Second, closing the cover puts the iBook to sleep, but it stops
>>>>> partway
>>>>> when trying to wake when the cover is opened.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Ditto on my iBook. I found a fix that used to work, but with recent
>>>> kernel
>>>> updates in Breezy, it now only sometimes works. I'll be glad to copy
>>>> over
>>>> the necessary files to your iBook when I come to the 10/22 meeting 
>>>> (I
>>>> won't be there this Saturday).
>>>
>>> Still a problem.
>>
>> Well, you don't have the necessary files yet.
>>
>>>>> Third, no sound output.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> My iBook suffers the same problem if the install is left in a stock
>>>> state.
>>>> I originally messed around with boot scripts to fix it, but 
>>>> recently,
>>>> I
>>>> discovered that there is a really simple fix. Edit the file
>>>> /etc/modules
>>>> with root privileges. Find the line that says "snd-powermac" in the
>>>> file
>>>> and insert two lines immediately before it like so:
>>>>
>>>> dmasound-pmac
>>>> -r dmasound-pmac
>>>> snd-powermac
>>>
>>> Thanks to Daniel, this now works.
>>>
>>>>> Fourth, usb wifi dongle does not work. The dongle is good and works
>>>>> with
>>>>> Calvin's iBook and Debian install.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Again, I'm sure the fix is very simple.
>>>
>>> Still a problem, but we know that it can be made to work.
>>>
>>>> Oh, goody. I'm not sure where you got a 2.6.12-8, since Breezy has
>>>> already
>>>> gone through 20 updates of 2.6.12-9 kernels. Are you sure you're
>>>> running
>>>> the latest 2.6.12-9? Until Breezy is officially released later this
>>>> month,
>>>> you should dist-upgrade at least once a day. There is now a new 
>>>> front
>>>> end
>>>> to apt called "Adept" that I haven't got the hang of yet. If you
>>>> decide to
>>>> run the GNOME desktop, it will periodically do "apt-get update" for
>>>> you in
>>>> the background, and let you know if anything is new.
>>>
>>> The 2.6.12-8 was the kernel that I got when I downloaded Breezy when 
>>> it
>>> was first available. The dist-upgrades have helped a lot. I believe I
>>> saw
>>> adept as part of the last dist-upgrade download.
>>
>> Breezy was first available when the development on it began, even
>> before the Hoary release in April. I know you haven't had the iBook
>> that long. If you used the bluish CDs that Jim Dennis burned, that was
>> the third "Colony" release of Breezy, shortly prior to the "Preview"
>> release, both of which have already been greatly obsoleted.
>>
>>>>> So far no joy on the other issues. Tried all the different settings
>>>>> for the sound
>>>>> but no change. Sleeping still does not work. The wifi issue seems 
>>>>> to
>>>>> be no
>>>>> modules for wireless. Not sure how to solve that one.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Do you know what chipset is being used? And which module Calvin was
>>>> using
>>>> for it? If I knew that, I could give you a step-by-step.
>>>
>>> I will look it up and get you the information when I get a chance. I
>>> have been very
>>> busy this week.
>>
>> You say it has a Prism GT chipset, and Calvin says it has a zd1211
>> chipset. Are you sure you have the same dongle? If you have the exact
>> model# of any 802.11 device, you can nearly always determine its
>> chipset at <http://www.linux-wlan.org/docs/wlan_adapters.html.gz>. 
>> It's
>> best not to click that link unless Firefox is your default browser,
>> because you need one that will display compressed webpages, like the
>> pages on the RUTE site. I really hope it's not one of the Prism
>> chipsets that need the linux-wlan-ng driver. That's what was giving
>> Bruce so much trouble with the dongle that he had, and what continues
>> to prevent Jos? from using the Hawking card that he has. I just tried 
>> a
>> "modprobe zd1211" on my iBook and got no errors, so that module is
>> obviously there. If that is indeed your chipset, the problem must be a
>> driver matching issue.
>>
>>>> I haven't checked recently, but have they fixed the problem in KDE 
>>>> of
>>>> kded
>>>> repeatedly segfaulting whenever you insert a CD or DVD? It was 
>>>> really
>>>> making KDE hard to use. Ubuntu has accomplished the hitherto
>>>> unimaginable:
>>>> making GNOME more usable than KDE. That is, THEIR packaging of both.
>>>> The
>>>> CPU is used very efficiently, so it never seems really slow to me. 
>>>> One
>>>> thing that will improve apparent speed is switching X.org to 16 bits
>>>> instead of 24, because it will give direct rendering a chance to 
>>>> work.
>>>> There isn't enough VRAM in the machine to use direct rendering in 24
>>>> bits
>>>> at 1024x768. Type "sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg" and accept
>>>> default
>>>> answers to each question except the one about bit depth.
>>>
>>> I haven't noticed the segfault problem on inserting a CD.
>>
>> What about a DVD or audio CD?
>>
>>> I changed the color to 16 bits and it does seem to help with speed 
>>> and
>>> usability
>>> a bit, but the disk drive is just plain slow. I wonder how much 
>>> faster
>>> an external
>>> 3.5 inch 7200 rpm firewire drive would be?
>>
>> I keep forgetting that the stock installation has DMA disabled. You
>> should turn it on in /etc/hdparm.conf, although the difference is not
>> all that noticeable.
>>
>>> Speaking of external hard disk drives, I plugged in one of my 
>>> external
>>> firewire
>>> drives from my Mac and it automounted and Kubuntu had no problems
>>> dealing
>>> with it even though it is an hfs+ formatted drive! I am impressed! I
>>> have avoided
>>> hfs disks with linux as it has always had a reputation of being less
>>> than a
>>> satisfactory situation. I am not sure who changed it, but it now 
>>> looks
>>> to be good.
>>> Ubuntu/Kubuntu seem to be making some real progress in getting a real
>>> consumer
>>> quality desktop experience on a par with the best, (Mac OS X).
>>
>> Don't let appearances fool you. It relies on the kernel's handling of
>> the filesystem, which was barely Panther-compatible for HFS+ when I
>> last checked, and will definitely cause problems with Tiger. The
>> filesystem journaling introduced in 10.2.2 and made default in 10.3
>> AFAIK still isn't handled under Linux, let alone all the new 
>> filesystem
>> stuff in 10.4, so my recommendation is to only mount HFS+ volumes as
>> read-only except when it's absolutely necessary to mount as read-write
>> for as short a time as possible, immediately followed by a course of
>> DiskWarrior 3.0.3 or later. As for HFS-not-plus, support was
>> near-perfect in the 2.4 kernels, except for formatting them, which
>> would stuff the superblock full of subtly invalid values. I don't know
>> whose bright idea it was to rip out most of the HFS code from the 2.6
>> tree, but there is no longer any way to access either metadata or
>> multiple forks, where 2.4 gave you a choice of like 5 different ways.
>> If you need to share files between Linux and Mac OS X on the same
>> machine, run OS X under MOL, and export a Linux folder over NFS to the
>> OS X you have running under MOL.
>>
>>>> Under the GNOME desktop, simply plugging in a FireWire hard disk 
>>>> will
>>>> mount all partitions on it (including HFS+ ones, and in read-write
>>>> mode!).
>>>> Haven't tried it under KDE, but I would expect problems related to
>>>> kded.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I was not a great fan of laptops, but the used iBook was affordable
>>>>> so I got it.
>>>>> It is slowly converting me to the usability of a laptop, though I
>>>>> still prefer my
>>>>> desktop with dual 17 inch monitors.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The iBook can drive an external monitor, but AFAIK it can't do
>>>> dual-head.
>>>
>>> There is a patch under OS X to enable dual-head operation, but I 
>>> don't
>>> know
>>> if it would work under Linux.
>>
>> URL???
>>
>>>> I can also be of assistance in getting Java to work on it, as well 
>>>> as
>>>> the
>>>> PowerPC equivalent of the w32codecs package. I've had no luck 
>>>> getting
>>>> RealPlayer to work, though.
>>>
>>> I will probably take you up on it if we can get the other problems
>>> resolved.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> Ross
>>>
>>>
>>> Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once. (Graffiti: Gene 
>>> Mora)
>>>
>>> There are no ugly women, there is only lack of vodka.
>
>
>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
> -- 
> Some people have a way about them that seems to say: "If I have only
> one life to live, let me live it as a jerk."
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