HOWTO Install kana and kanji for Firefox on Debian Sarge

This article was first written in May 2004 for the BeezNest technical
website (http://glasnost.beeznest.org/articles/130).

This is a quick manual on how to install kana and kanji (Japanese writing) handling for the Mozilla-Firefox browser (and probably all other browsers) on Debian Sarge.

I don’t know whether the following is or isn’t mandatory, but these steps were enough to give a good result.

Installing the “Languages” extension

* Note: this section has proven useless so I have moved it to the end of this article. Just for info on how to install this extension.

Installing the fonts

The first (and only) step to take is to install the fonts on your system.

The easiest way is probably to use apt-cache search (or search within synaptic if you’re more like this) for “japanese fonts” and you’ll find some fonts packages.

Install some of them. I’ve used: apt-get install ttf-kochi-mincho for additional fonts, you might want to install the following, but just ttf-kochi-mincho (9MB) should be enough apt-get install ttf-kochi-gothic xfonts-intl-japanese xfonts-intl-japanese-big xfonts-kaname (you’ll need to have root access or sudo in order to use apt-get install)Note the xfonts ones are smaller in size (but didn’t help in my case)

You should already be able to see the japanese fonts in your browser. If this doesn’t work, try the following in any order:

• restart your browser (close every window before launching it again)
• go to the extensions page for Firefox and follow the link to the “Languages” extension’s homepage, then follow the link to the language-specific extensions and install the Japanese one (strange characters ending with “Ja”)
• restart your X server (in order for him to take into account the new fonts – I really don’t think this is needed, but just in case…)

If you have comments about this article, please send me an e-mail.

Installing the “Languages” extension – most probably useless for you

Start Firefox and go to the extensions handler (Tools -> Options -> Extensions) and click on the link to get to the extensions’ page.

Select “Install” on the “Languages” extension section. Install the extension by clicking “Cancel” if you’re not administrator so that the extension is installed only for your user. Clicking “OK” when you’re not administrator will probably not succeed in installing the extension.

Then you’ll have to restart your browser in order for your changes to take effect.

Upgrading from Sarge to Etch

This article is incomplete and was first written in June 2006 
for the BeezNest technical website (http://glasnost.beeznest.org/articles/336).

This is a procedure to upgrade a Debian Sarge GNOME Desktop PC to Debian Etch.

First, make sure you are not using devfs. If you are using udev, or no device manager daemon, then you are ready. Also, I did not test upgrade from a 2.4 kernel, only 2.6 to 2.6.

Make sure all your packages belong to well-known apt sources, otherwise, you will probably have to fix things by hands later. apt-show-versions is a tool that could be helpful for this.

Replace all occurences to sarge (or stable) in /etc/apt/sources.list by etch.

# apt-get update

The first tricky part is to get kernel and udev working fine. Hope you don’t have any third-party kernel module needed for the upgrade (wifi driver?). Any module included officially in the kernel will do, though.

Preferably stop all of your running applications, logoff, and stop gdm (you’re using gdm, right?). Then:

# touch /etc/udev/kernel-upgrade
# apt-get install udev initramfs-tools linux-image-2.6-686
# apt-get install modutils module-init-tools apt aptitude tasksel

As you’ve just upgraded apt, rerun an apt-get update before continuing.Remove the hotplug, modutils and base-config packages, they are no longer used

# dpkg -P hotplug modutils base-config
# apt-get install gnome-volume-manager

Warning message about signatures when using apt post – Sarge

This article was first written in November 2005 for the BeezNest technical
website (http://glasnost.beeznest.org/articles/304).

If you notice warning messages like these when doing an APT update, read this to fix it:

W: GPG error: ftp://ftp.tux.org unstable Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY BB5E459A529B8BDA

To fix it, take the last 8 characters of the PUBKEY here above and issue the following commands:

testmachine$ gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 529B8BDA
gpg: requesting key 529B8BDA from hkp server pgp.mit.edu
gpg: key 529B8BDA: public key "Blackdown Java-Linux Package Signing Key <package@blackdown.org>" imported
gpg: no ultimately trusted keys found
gpg: Total number processed: 1
gpg:               imported: 1
testmachine:~$ gpg --armor --export 529B8BDA | sudo apt-key add -
gpg: no ultimately trusted keys found
OK

I copied the output for you to see how it should work. Then, if you issue, for example the following command, the warning will be gone:

testmachine:~$ sudo apt-get update

Hope this helps!

Scanning mails from Exim4 through ClamAV on Debian Sarge

This article was first written in November 2005 for the BeezNest technical
website (http://glasnost.beeznest.org/articles/299).

The following has been tested on Debian Sarge, but may work with later versions. Follow this procedure if you refused to split the Exim4 configuration as debconf proposes. If you did split it, it would be slightly different. You will need to have package exim4-daemon-heavy, as exim4-daemon-light does not ship with the required support for that feature.

1. Add clamav user to group Debian-exim [1]
2. Add AllowSupplementaryGroups option to /etc/clamav/clamd.conf (and restart service clamav-daemon)
3. Create directory /var/spool/exim4/scan and make sure owner is Debian-exim:Debian-exim and is group-writable
4. Add line av_scanner=’clamd:/var/run/clamav/clamd.ctl’ [2] to /etc/exim4/update-exim4.conf.conf
5. Add the following code to /etc/exim4/exim4.conf.template in section related to 40_exim4-config_check_data:

deny
   message = This message contains a virus: ($malware_name) please scan your system.
   demime = *
   malware = *

6. Then, run script update-exim4.conf as root and restart service exim4.See also this article: http://koivi.com/exim4-config/

---

[1] adduser clamav Debian-exim

[2] if clamd is running locally, otherwise use for example av_scanner=’clamd:127.0.0.1 3310′

HOWTO Install PHP-Eclipse for Eclipse 3.1 on Debian Sarge

This article was first written in October 2005 for the BeezNest technical
website (http://glasnost.beeznest.org/articles/296).

Introduction

This article helps installing Eclipse 3.1 and the PHPEclipse plugin on a Debian Sarge install. This means installing the basic software, installing the PHP plugin into it, creating a new project and testing the debug functions.

Eclipse 3.1

There is no (official) package for Eclipse 3.1 on Debian Sarge (Sid has version 2.1?), so this install procedure is based on the binary software available for Linux x86 here.

Download the software and uncompress it (it uncompresses in a directory named eclipse, so you can uncompress it wherever you want to) and move into the eclipse directory.

$ tar zxvc eclipse-SDK-3.1.1-linux-gtk.tar.gz
$ cd eclipse

Quick start Eclipse by launching the eclipse executable

$ ./eclipse

Decide which directory will be your workspace. The workspace directory is where Eclipse files are kept, not where your source files are kept, so don’t use the sources directory as this will conflict with projects you might create later.

Select “Workbench” (unless you want to learn more about anything) in the intro screen.

You are now inside the IDE.

PHP Plugin

To get an open-source free sofware PHP plugin, go to the SourceForge page for the plugin and download the plugin for Eclipse 3.1 stream (not official by the time of writing).

Once downloaded, unzip the file in the newly-created eclipse directory, they should be written into the plugins and features directory directly.

$ unzip phpeclipse-1.1.6-unofficial.zip

Now start Eclipse again

$ ./eclipse

Inside Eclipse,

• use File > Import > External Features
• select the location (normally the Eclipse directory) and click Next
• click “Select All”
• click “Finish”

Then import plugins in the same way

• use File > Import > External Plug-ins and Fragments
• Click “Next”
• Click “Add All” (or only select the ones coming from sourceforge if you want to restrict to the minimum)
• Click “Finish”

Create a PHP Project

• use File > New > Project…
• Click “PHP”
• select “PHP Project” and click “Next”
• give a project name
• uncheck the box (if your source code directory already exists) and enter the path to your sources for this project
• click “Finish”

You now have a new project appearing in your left navigation bar.

Setting up PHP interpreter

For some reason, the plugin expects to find the PHP interpreter as /apache/php/php. You don’t want that as on a Debian machine, it is located at /usr/bin/php (or php4). To change it, use the Run > Debug menu

• Click on “PHP Application”
• Click “New”
• Give a name (“My interpreter”?)
• Select the file you want to debug in this case (just select one PHP file from your new project)
• Select the “Environment” tab
• Select the “Interpreter” tab
• Browse to select /usr/bin/php4
• Click “Debug”

That’s it, you have debugged your first PHP script with Eclipse.

I am still starting there, so I don’t understand why the interpreter tells me I have an unexpected ‘$’ at the end of my script, but I might find that later, and so might you.

Fixing up PHP projects building when it disappears

After a while (I’m using Eclipse 3.2 now), you might run into a problem with the PHP building process, whereby using the CTRL+Click on a function name will tell you The resource is not on the build path of a PHP project. If thi is the case, you’ll want to fix a few things to make it work. First, edit the .project file in your projects root, and make sure the <buildCommand> and <nature> tags below exist (otherwise add them and their contents, as is):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<projectDescription>
  <name>myProjectName</name>
  <comment></comment>
  <projects>
  </projects>
  <buildSpec>
    <buildCommand>
      <name>net.sourceforge.phpeclipse.parserbuilder</name>
      <arguments>
      </arguments>
    </buildCommand>
  </buildSpec>
  <natures>
    <nature>net.sourceforge.phpeclipse.phpnature</nature>
  </natures>
</projectDescription>

This is taken from a technical forum.

Then, you need to (probably restart Eclipse and) right click on your project and select Properties then reset the Document Root in PHP Project Settings (after selecting Use project settings).

When asked if you want to rebuild, click Rebuild now/Yes. That should do the trick.

HOWTO Install Debian Sarge on an AOpen 1557 GLS

This article was first written in December 2004 for the BeezNest technical
website (http://glasnost.beeznest.org/articles/194).

Introduction

All in all, the basic Debian Sarge install (using Netinst CD) does a lot of work and the laptop is usable as is (network, graphical display, sound, …). However, some things need a bit of tuning to get the best of your laptop. This article is intended to help those people who want to get the best out of it or, so to speak, to make everything work. I can add that most information here is also applicable to many other laptops than this specific one.

Here is a shortcut table with the status of every element likely not to be working by default and their current state for my installation:

Device or feature	Status	Comment
Wireless Network Card Intel 2200BG	Working	Sources on the Internet say that scanning is not allowed with this driver
ACPI Power Management Features	Partially working	The energy economy features are not handled, but it might be some flaw in my configuration. The battery status is handled perfectly. The CPU speed is not well handled, depending on the method used
Intel AC’97 Modem	Working	Install slmodem daemon and use module-assistant
TouchPad	Working great
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 – 3D	Working	The drivers seem not to be out for now for this card, but you can use standard RADEON drivers instead
ATI TV-Out	Working (not tested)
Card reader SD-MMC-MS	Not tested	Should work fine, I guess…
Infrared	Not tested	Should work

At install time…

The only thing you need to know at install-time is that you must deactivate the framebuffer (I don’t remember exactly how, but you need to press the F3 key or something similar at install screen to have more info about it). One says that its often necessary on laptops, so you probably know it already. I think it’s something like the following, but please check this with the help screens provided.

install framebuffer=off

Install Wireless device and hotkeys – ipw2200

Short and quick: Go to http://www.cure.nom.fr/article.php?theme=Linux&id_fic=12

Read the page.

Install module-assistant:

apt-get install module-assistant

Install the kernel headers:

apt-get install kernel-headers-2.6.8-1-686

for example.Install the ipw2200 package

apt-get install ipw2200-source

Read the doc:

more /usr/share/doc/ipw2200-source/README.Debian

It says to launch the command:

module-assistant a-i ipw2200

The command compiles the firmware. Now you need to download the firmware files on http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/firmware.php, to extract the files and copy them in /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/, then load the module:

tar zxvf ipw2200-fw-2.2.tgz
mv *.fw /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware/
modprobe ipw2200
iwconfig eth1

rfswitch.sf.net -> aopen -> module acerhk -> download and compile -> modprobe acerhk Compile:

cd acerhk-0.5.18
cat INSTALL |more

Change KERNELSRC in Makefile to the kernel build environment (/lib/modules/kernelversion/build):

vi Makefile
KERNELSRC=/lib/modules/2.6.8-1-686/build

Copy created acerhk.o to …

cp acerhk.ko /lib/modules/2.6.8-1-686/kernel/drivers/char/
depmod -a
modprobe acerhk poll=1 autowlan=1

Just consider that the README file for acerhk indicates the files in /proc/driver/acerhk/ should be updated when you press the keys… this doesn’t work here (so far).

Now if you want this to be enabled at startup, just add this line in your /etc/modules file:

acerhk poll=1 autowlan=1

Your wireless hotkey should light the wireless led and activate the interface. Check if you have the right settings in /etc/network/interfaces and do something like this on the command-line to bring the interface up:

ifup eth1

Also, the airsnort package seems to be something to sniff for wireless connexion. If you find a way to make it work (it doesn’t find the wireless device), just send me an e-mail (please). Same for the GNOME Wireless connexion monitor applet… When pressing the Wireless-activation key (first hotkey on the left of the keyboard) while booting, the GNOME Wireless connexion monitor applet seems to react sometimes

Now that you set up the hotkeys system, you can also configure hotkeys in GNOME (Applications -> Desktop Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts), using the CD-player keys to play/pause/… and the mail key to start your mail agent, …

How to use power savings features

Warning Using the ATI proprietary driver for 3D rendering might well break the ACPI wake-up possibility, thus preventing you from getting your laptop to sleep properly.

The CPU is an Intel chip, using SpeedStep technology for power savings. To enable using power savings features, you might want to try the following:

• Have a kernel 2.6.5 or higher
• Have sysfs installed (if your /sys is populated, you have it working)
• Have udev installed (apt-get install udev)
• Have powernowd [1] package installed (apt-get install powernowd)
• Have the following modules loaded at boot time (/etc/modules):
  • proc_intf
  • speedstep-centrino (or you could try speedstep-ich if it doesn’t work but I don’t guarantee anything)
  • cpufreq_powersave
  • cpufreq_userspace
  • freq_table
• Have the gnome-cpufreq-applet package (for GNOME 2.x) installed (apt-get install gnome-cpufreq-applet)
• Reboot your computer to try it out

What is the result? ACPI detects everything alright, but I didn’t get the sleep mode to work yet. The following is a work in development. This DOESN’T WORK. It will put your laptop to sleep, but probably not wake it up, so you’ll have to hold the power button to shut it off completely and restart it.

Anyway, ACPI on Debian is shipped only with the powerbutton handling. The place to look at is /etc/acpi. There you will find the powerbtn.sh script, which handles the powerbutton, and in /etc/acpi/events, you will find the powerbtn file, which tell ACPI which script to execute when the powerbutton is pressed. Now, those files look like this… /etc/acpi/events/powerbtn

# /etc/acpi/events/powerbtn
# This is called when the user presses the power button and calls
# /etc/acpi/powerbtn.sh for further processing.

# Optionally you can specify the placeholder %e. It will pass
# through the whole kernel event message to the program you've
# specified.

# We need to react on "button power.*" and "button/power.*" because
# of kernel changes.

event=button[ /]power
action=/etc/acpi/powerbtn.sh

/etc/acpi/powerbtn.sh

#!/bin/sh
# /etc/acpi/powerbtn.sh
# Initiates a shutdown when the power button has been
# pressed.

# Test if the computer is in suspended mode right now
if ps -Af | grep -q '[k]desktop' && test -f /usr/bin/dcop
then
    dcop --all-sessions --all-users ksmserver ksmserver logout 0 2 0 && exit 0
else
    /sbin/shutdown -h now "Power button pressed"
fi

What we’ll need to do is use a lid file for when the screen panel is “clipped” down, and the sleepbtn for when the sleep button is pressed (Fn+F2). Let’s do that: /etc/acpi/events/lid

# /etc/acpi/events/lid
# This is called when the user closes the lid.

# Optionally you can specify the placeholder %e. It will pass
# through the whole kernel event message to the program you've
# specified.

# We need to react on "button lid.*" and "button/lid.*" because
# of kernel changes.

event=button[ /]lid
action=/etc/acpi/sleep.sh

/etc/acpi/events/sleepbtn

# /etc/acpi/events/sleep
# This is called when the user presses the sleep button.

# Optionally you can specify the placeholder %e. It will pass
# through the whole kernel event message to the program you've
# specified.

# We need to react on "button sleep.*" and "button/sleep.*" because
# of kernel changes.

event=button[ /]sleep
action=/etc/acpi/sleep.sh

/etc/acpi/sleep.sh

#!/bin/sh
# /etc/acpi/sleep.sh
# Initiates a suspend to memory [when sleep button is pressed]

/etc/init.d/mysql stop     # somehow mysql causes problems if you don't shut it down manually
/etc/init.d/hotplug stop   # same thing. This seems to be gone for kernels >= 2.6.9
sync                       # flush buffers ('read that somewhere, not really useful)
hwclock --systohc          # saves the clock state ('read that somewhere, not really useful)
sleep 2                    # wait 'til past jobs are done
echo mem > /sys/power/state   # puts your laptop to sleep (this is the mandatory part)
sleep 2                    # wait a bit before waking up (when other event is triggered)
hwclock --hctosys          # get clock state back
/etc/init.d/hotplug start  # restart hotplug
/etc/init.d/mysql start    # restart mysql

The tricky thing here (as I found reading articles about the IBM T40 ACPI handling) is that putting your computer to sleep will probably prevent using the sleepbtn to get it back to the awaken state. So you will need to use the powerbtn to do that, because that one will probably work. But for the powerbtn to react another way if the computer is in sleep mode or if it’s normal, it has to detect that somewhere. So we will use a file. In sleep.sh, we will trigger a file creation before going to sleep. Then if the file exist, the powerbtn will exit sleep mode. If it doesn’t, the powerbtn will shut the computer down safely.

/etc/acpi/sleep.sh

#!/bin/sh
# /etc/acpi/sleep.sh
# Initiates a suspend to memory [when sleep button is pressed]

/etc/init.d/mysql stop
/etc/init.d/hotplug stop
touch /tmp/suspended
sync
hwclock --systohc
sleep 2
echo mem > /sys/power/state
sleep 2
hwclock --hctosys
/etc/init.d/hotplug start
/etc/init.d/mysql start

/etc/acpi/powerbtn.sh

#!/bin/sh
# /etc/acpi/powerbtn.sh
# Initiates a shutdown when the power button has been
# pressed.

# Test if the computer is in suspended mode right now
if [ ! -f /tmp/suspended] ; then
        # Not in suspended mode -> shutdown
        if ps -Af | grep -q '[k]desktop' && test -f /usr/bin/dcop
        then
                dcop --all-sessions --all-users ksmserver ksmserver logout 0 2 0 && exit 0
        else
                /sbin/shutdown -h now "Power button pressed"
        fi
else
        # It is in suspended mode -> do nothing but come back from suspend
        # (handled by sleep.sh)
        rm -f /tmp/suspended
fi

I’ve been told that these settings (although I already knew they lost my network modules in the meantime) cause problems with other people. Don’t hesitate to report if you want me to give some help (and thanks to Ineiti for his) in order to make this article better (and let anyone enjoy ACPI features).

Display size in X

Update /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 to add 1400×1050 display size

Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "Default Screen"
        Device          "ATI Mobility Radeon 9700"
        Monitor         "Écran générique"
        DefaultDepth    24
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           1
                Modes           "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           4
                Modes           "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           8
                Modes           "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           15
                Modes           "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           16
                Modes           "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection
        SubSection "Display"
                Depth           24
                Modes           "1400x1050" "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
        EndSubSection
EndSection

If using GNOME, install the GNOME applet to change display size

apt-get install gnome-xrandr-applet

This should allow you to add the Display Geometry Switcher applet in the toolbar. Clicking on the applet allows to change to 1400×1050 mode.

Modem Intel AC’97

The modem is an Intel AC’97. Thanks to giupy on debian-laptop ML this section should help you install the modem. Install the sl-modem-daemon package

apt-get install sl-modem-daemon

In the first screen, you are asked where your modem is located. Answer truly.

Now you should install the sl-modem kernel module. Use module-assistant for this in the following sequence:

• launch module-assistant on the command line
• go to “select”
• select “sl-modem” with the space bar and press “OK”
• select “Build” (at this stage, my module assistant hung up because of an impossibility to access slamr module or something similar. I just rebooted and restarted module assistant and did follow the same steps)
• select “Install” (maybe module-assistant will do this automatically)

Now your modem should be accessible via /dev/modem (which points to /dev/ttySL0, which in turn points to /dev/pts/0).

To configure your connexion, use pppconfig. Use default parameters if you don’t know (but you should know phone number, login and password). Don’t forget your modem is located at /dev/modem (likely), so do not accept the default /dev/ttyS0

If you want your modem to make some noise when connecting, and as it uses AC’97 soundcard features, you should be able to change the volume in the your GNOME sound controller (phone-out or phone-in).

TouchPad

The TouchPad needs to be setup as well to work properly. Please note it will work without this, but as a usual mouse, nothing more, while doing what follows here will bring you more features.

apt-get install xfree86-driver-synaptics

In /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, you should find (or write) a section like the following

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Touchpad"
        Driver          "synaptics"
        Option          "CorePointer"
        Option          "Protocol"              "auto-dev"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/psaux"
        Option          "VertScrollDelta"       "100"
        Option          "AccelFactor"           "0.0025"
        Option          "RightEdge"             "5400"
        Option          "MaxTapTime"            "180"
        Option          "TopEdge"               "1900"
        Option          "SHMConfig"             "on"
        Option          "FingerLow"             "25"
        Option          "LeftEdge"              "1900"
        Option          "MaxTapMove"            "220"
        Option          "MinSpeed"              "0.03"
        Option          "FingerHigh"            "30"
        Option          "MaxSpeed"              "0.18"
        Option          "BottomEdge"            "4000"
        Option          "SendCoreEvents"        "true"
EndSection

In addition, the following section should include, together with the existing lines (ignore the dots):

...
Section "Module"
        ...
        Load "synaptics"
EndSection
...
Section "ServerLayout"
        ...
        InputDevice     "Touchpad"
EndSection

You can change all these values if needed. You might want to increase the MaxSpeed and AccelFactor options a bit if you find your cursor doesn’t scroll the page faster enough

ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 DRI

Warning Using the ATI proprietary driver for 3D rendering might well break the ACPI wake-up possibility, thus preventing you from getting your laptop to sleep properly.

The basic output of the card is alright, but there is apparently no open source DRI driver yet, so no 3D for now… but I hope I’ll be getting the news as soon as it’s out.

Meanwhile, you can install the proprietary driver for common RADEON chipset from the ATI website (you should load the URL support.ati.com once to get a session cookie).

Download the driver corresponding to your XFree version (in this case, most probably 4.3). Do the following (the first line is only if you haven’t installed alien on your system)

sudo apt-get install alien
sudo alien -dc fglrx_4_3_0*.rpm
sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite fglrx*.deb
sudo vi /etc/X11/XF86Config-4

in your /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, replace the current “Driver” line in the “Device” section for your graphic card by

  Driver    "fglrx"

You might still need to do some additional stuff if issuing a “modprobe fglrx” says it cannot find the module. Supposing you are using kernel 2.6.8…

sudo apt-get install kernel-headers-2.6.8-2-686
cd /lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/
sh make.sh
cd ..
sh make_install.sh
modprobe fglrx

Now, relaunch XFree86 (by using CTRL+ALT+backspace or rebooting). Test your config with “glxgears”. If you get something about 2000.00 fps, the driver works.

Note As of 16/06/2005, a new ATI driver now supports kernels up to 2.6.11 ;-)

atitvout and display exports

The atitvout is a Debian package that makes it possible (you need the command line though) to export your display to another screen or a TV (with a TV-out cable, see back of the laptop).

apt-get install atitvout

Then you should be able (apparently only as root by default) to export your display to another screen with

atitvout lc

See man atitvout for more info.

I have found that Xinerama is supposed to make this for X.org here

Notes for later extension of this article

• cpufreqd – allow use of the cpufrequency applet in GNOME – worked before I did the work in power savings section. More to come later
• card reader (MMC,SD,MS) works under Windows with the RICOH MediaCard Controller R5C590/R5C591/R5C593 driver.

Many thanks to…

Frédéric Peters, Jérôme Warnier and Guo-Rong Koh for helping me through all this information collection task.

This article can be found on TuxMobil.org which also lists a lot of other Linux install on laptops. Feel free to go there and have a look if other articles suit you better.

[1] powernowd seems preferable to cpufreqd in this case, see paul.hahn.name/Articles/InstallRepDir/ACPI/view for more details

Trust 750 LCD FamilyC@m on Linux

This article was first written in April 2004 for
the BeezNest technical website (http://glasnost.beeznest.org/articles/117)

This article reports the successful use of a Trust 750 LCD FamilyC@m digital camera under Linux Debian Sarge.

The FC 750 got to work pretty easily. It uses USB Mass Storage and stores its pictures in jpeg format.

To use it, first install hotplug (apt-get install hotplug). Then start it. I didn’t find a way to start it manually (but didn’t look for long) so I know rebooting the system did work for me. It’s most probably unnecessary though.

Connect the camera to the computer as described in the manual (put it on PC mode and tick “Mass Storage”).

You could see, using tty1 (the first terminal screen) that the camera is recognized by the system and that a link to it is autogenerated at /dev/sda1.

Edit your /etc/fstab file (you need root permissions for that) and add this line: /dev/sda1 /photo vfat user,noauto 0 0

Then (still root) create /photo (mkdir /photo) and give permission to the user(s) to read, write and execute within this directory (chmod o+r,w,x /photo).

Leave the root access behind you (exit) and type mount /photo. Now go into your /photo directory and check out your picture files…

Now you’ve set that up, and assuming you’ve got a GNOME environment, you can use the Disk Mounter applet to make it even easier:

Right-click your task-bar. Click Add to panel -> Utility -> Disk Mounter.  Right-click on the newly inserted applet on your task-bar. Click Preferences. Change the directory to /photo and choose a nice icon. Try clicking the icon to mount/umount the camera.

Don’t forget that in order to umount the camera, you need to avoid having anything accessing the /photo directory (or one of its subdirectories).

I didn’t try the webcam feature though. The FamilyC@m was a very basic digital camera though (one of the first ever cheap ones) and I would certainly not recommend it today (although mine might still work, it used to make 1.3Mpixels pictures of very arguable quality, so it is now in a box, somewhere).

Upgrading from Woody to Sarge

This article was first written in February 2004 for
the BeezNest technical website (http://glasnost.beeznest.org/articles/109)

It seems I’ve been pretty lucky to upgrade without any major problems, but hey! If I was, why wouldn’t you…

Before starting the upgrade, please note that it could need up to around 1GB (depending on the packages you already have installed) hard disk space to store the packages and then install them. Once you are done with it, it will eat around 200MB more than the corresponding Woody, still depending on the packages you had before.

Also, it might be a good idea to download the packages on a fast connection and keep them on your disk until you can actually do the upgrade (using -du option for apt-get dist-upgrade).

• log as root (or use sudo if it is well configured)
• change /etc/apt/sources.list (save the old one in /etc/apt/sources.list.woody)
  • change all stable to sarge
  • comment backports sources, if any

• apt-get update

• halt X and use terminal mode only (/etc/init.d/xdm stop, gdm or kdm)

• apt-get dist-upgrade (take note of the packages that will be REMOVED, you’ll probably need to readd them manually afterwards, if you want/need them. Note that lots of packages will be downloaded)

• read the questions carefully before answering them, you’ll probably want to install the new versions of the configuration files, unless you really know what you do. Chances are that you will need to reconfigure some of those files afterwards, though [1].

This is pretty much all you need to do. If you have a problem with replacing a config file, check the changes by typing “d” before accepting the update.

I had a problem with xlibmesa3-glu unable to install because of some file removal need, file which was also used by xlibmesa3. I proceeded to remove xlibmesa3, temporarily (using dpkg -P xlibmesa3). This has required me to remove a lot of other packages, but basically, once it is removed, all new versions come back again with the next apt-get -f install.

If the process interrupts displaying an error and asking to do an apt-get -f install, just do so and then type apt-get dist-upgrade back again when the problem is solved (see above paragraph for a problem resolution example).

Once you are done with all the upgrade, check once more if there is no new version (Sarge is moving fast) with an apt-get update followed again by an apt-get dist-upgrade.

Chances are you will have a new kernel. Using LILO or GRUB makes it completely different. Note that both LILO and GRUB come with a sensible script to update their configuration depending upon the kernels installed (if you used Debian kernel packages, which I recommend). You will also probably be interested in this article too: HOWTO Upgrade from devfs to udev on Debian Sarge

Remove the current Java Runtime Environment or Java Developer Kit if installed (usually j2re1.3 or j2sdk1.3), and install the new version, compiled with GCC 3.2 (j2re1.4 or j2sdk1.4).

Remove the Python versions you won’t use anymore.

Use deborphan to clean all unneeded packages (purge packages).

Replace flashplayer-mozilla, if installed, with flashplugin-nonfree, which has a way to update your Flash plugin easily (/usr/sbin/update-flashplugin).

If you used the GNOME 2.2 backport from James Strandboge like described in the article HOWTO Install a Debian Woody with GNOME 2.2 and OOo 1.1, I suggest you also do the following steps to get a really clean Sarge:

• there will probably be a lot of packages left from the backport. To list them, I’d bet listing packages whose version number include a j (my packages), a jds (James’ packages) or woody (James or other’s packages) are of those. You’ll have to remove them and replace them with the appropriate Sarge version
• rebuild scrollkeeper’s database by issuing a scrollkeeper-rebuilddb

If you used, like me, some Adrian Bunk’s backports [2] with the GNOME 2.2 backport and OpenOffice.org 1.1, you may run into other problems as well. Forcing manually ( apt-get install, nothing more complicated, don’t worry) the install of the removed packages will work without problems. The following command resolved the problem for me:

# apt-get install openoffice.org openoffice.org-bin openoffice.org-debian-files openoffice.org-help-fr openoffice.org-l10n-en openoffice.org-l10n-fr openoffice.org-l10n-nl debianutils coreutils manpages-fr

Christian Marillat’s packages for multimedia applications will probably not upgrade like expected, but hey, this is not Debian! And as you already installed them on your own at the first time, it is not more difficult to upgrade them now.

Welcome to Sarge…

I strongly advise to clean packages which have been removed while upgrading. To do so, list them with the following command and purge them if needed:

# dpkg -l|grep ^rc

---

[1] to do so, find the files touched and re-apply your personal changes. The following command will find them for you: find /etc -name "*.dpkg-old"

[2] I usually use the newer kernels from him, and their dependencies