Tag: Linux

Meet Werewolf

Today I upgraded my work PC up to Fedora 8 (Werewolf). Unlike previous upgrades I tried to use yum. I run the procedure according to Upgrading Fedora Using Yum. It took about 3 – 4 hours and finished successfully. After rebooting I just install a plug-in to listen MP3
yum update alsa-plugins-pulseaudio
and patched VMWave to build vmnet on post 2.6.23 kernels. That’s it! Enjoying fast system 🙂

P. S. Another workaround. Any Java-based applications crashes with following error:
java: xcb_xlib.c:50: xcb_xlib_unlock: Assertion `c->xlib.lock' failed.
Hack which works for me is following:
sed -i 's/XINERAMA/FAKEEXTN/g' /usr/java/jre1.6.0_01/lib/i386/xawt/libmawt.so

Printing from RedHat 9 to Xerox Workcenter M123

Today I spent some time to setup Xerox Workcenter M123 in the RedHat 9. The difficulty was in the cups version. There is an old one which doesn’t allow to pick up PPD file during configuration. So, everything I did manually. But printer didn’t print test page. It just waited a few seconds and skipped it. I specified a log level as debug and found following row:
D [06/Nov/2007:17:39:31 +0200] [Job 136] /usr/lib/cups/filter/foomatic-rip: No such file or directory
After a short googling I found that page which explains how to add foomatic-rip in the RedHat 9 (package foomatic for Fedora 7 already includes that filter). So, the procedure is pretty simple:

  • download foomatic-rip and move it to /usr/bin
  • make it executable and create a symbolic link like so:
    # chmod 755 /usr/bin/foomatic-rip
    # ln -s /usr/bin/foomatic-rip /usr/lib/cups/filter
  • add printer using cups web interface with dummy driver
  • download new PPD and replace existing one for created printer in the /etc/cups/ppd
  • restart the cups

Now you can print to Xerox Workcenter M123 from RedHat 9. Note that this driver doesn’t support duplex printing!

Top 10 Linux Distributions for Audio Production

Here is a top 10 of Linux Distribution to make a professional Multimedia Stations:

So, you have enough alternatives to MS Windows based commercial software for professional music processing.

[via Softpedia.com]

VMware Player 2.0.0-45731 and kernel 2.6.22

After upgrade my Fedora 7 up to kernel 2.6.22 I couldn’t configure VMware Player 2.0.0-45731. The configuration crashed during building of vmnet module:
Building the vmnet module.
Using 2.6.x kernel build system.
make: Entering directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only'
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.22.1-41.fc7/build/include/.. SUBDIRS=$PWD SRCROOT=$PWD/. modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.22.1-41.fc7-i686'
CC [M] /tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/driver.o
CC [M] /tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/hub.o
CC [M] /tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/userif.o
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/userif.c: In function ‘VNetCopyDatagramToUser’:
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/userif.c:630: error: ‘const struct sk_buff’ has no member named ‘h’
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/userif.c:630: error: ‘const struct sk_buff’ has no member named ‘nh’
/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/userif.c:636: error: ‘const struct sk_buff’ has no member named ‘h’
make[2]: *** [/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only/userif.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.22.1-41.fc7-i686'
make: *** [vmnet.ko] Error 2
make: Leaving directory `/tmp/vmware-config0/vmnet-only'
Unable to build the vmnet module.

Thanks to Philipp Baer who did a patch for VMWare Workstation 6.0 which works for VMware Player 2.0.0-45731 as well. To solve the problem do following:

  • Untar vmnet.tar to temporary directory:
    $ tar xfv /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/vmnet.tar -C /tmp/
  • Download the patch:
    $ wget -P /tmp http://npw.net/~phbaer/vmware-workstation-6.0_linux-kernel-2.6.22.patch
  • Apply the patch:
    $ CD /tmp/vmnet-only
    $ patch -p1 < ../vmware-workstation-6.0_linux-kernel-2.6.22.patch $ CD ../
  • Put patched sources back into archive
    $ tar vzcf vmnet.tar vmnet-only
    and copy to the VMWare module source directory

    $cp vmnet.tar /usr/lib/vmware/modules/source/

  • Run VMWare configuration script:
    $ vmware-config.pl

Google Desktop now on Linux

Recently Google announced a Linux version of its Desktop. It allows to search in local files and internet from one interface. Google Desktop supports many types of files such documents, images, music etc (it takes information from service data I guess). Moreover, you can make a search in your search history (sounds funny – search in the search, but I use that feature often) and GMail. Full list of features is available here.

Google Desktop is multilingual application. So, you may use it with your native language. Google Desktop for Linux can be downloaded from here.

A day without X

Here is an interesting experience of using console applications only. As you may see everything can be done without GUI:

Personally, I use VIM and Midnight Commander everyday, links – time to time. I used mutt before I moved to Thunderbird. I was really surprised by playing music and video in the console mode. A Window Management system Twin also looks cool!

Print from Linux via Samba

Recently I faced with problem of printing from the Linux server to the printer connected to the Windows PC via USB. So, here is a brief how to do it using CUPS.
1. Type http://localhost:631/ in your browser to open CUPS web interface and go to “Add new printer” page.
2. For device choose “Windows Printer via SAMBA”. If this options isn’t presented in the drop down list run following command as root:
ln -s `which smbspool` /usr/lib/cups/backend/smb
3. Device URI type in following format:
smb://win_user:win_pass@win_domen/win_PC/printer_name
4. Choose appropriate driver for your printer. I didn’t find my model in the list. So, I chose one from Generic:
Generic -> Generic PCL 6/PCL XL Printer Foomatic/pxlmono
For more information, please refer to OpenPrinting database.

See also: