Ubuntu upgrade and Firefox Flash player sound problems fix!

This last week I upgrade a box at home and all my sound through Firefox was gone… no more flash movies with sound here… luckily the fix is easy:

1. sudo [your-favorite-editor-here] /etc/firefox/firefoxrc
2. change line FIREFOX_DSP=”none” to FIREFOX_DSP=”auto”
3. done!

Restart firefox and if you flash player is working, you should have sound! ;-)

Ubuntu and Kubuntu sources listings for Edgy!

This listing is partially based on the list found at www.debianadmin.com, but I have only included stuff that is working for me and included updated GPG key information as much was outdated:

# Ubuntu main
deb http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy main restricted universe multiverse

# bugfixes
deb http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-updates main restricted universe multiverse

# kubuntu.org packages for the latest KDE version
deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde-latest edgy main
deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde-355 edgy main
deb-src http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde-latest edgy main

# kubuntu.org packages for the latest Koffice version
deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/koffice-latest edgy main
deb-src http://kubuntu.org/packages/koffice-latest edgy main

# GPG kubuntu.org:
#wget http://www.kubuntu.org/announcements/kubuntu-packages-jriddell-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

# security updates
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security main restricted universe multiverse

# backports
deb http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ edgy-backports main restricted universe multiverse

########### extras ############

# Canonical Commercial Repository (Opera,Real Player10.. etc)
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu edgy-commercial main

# Seveas Repository (Multimedia Packages)
deb http://seveas.imbrandon.com/ edgy-seveas extras seveas-meta custom
deb-src http://seveas.imbrandon.com/ edgy-seveas extras seveas-meta custom

# GPG seveas.imbrandon.com:
#wget http://seveas.imbrandon.com/1135D466.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

# Skype for linux
deb http://download.skype.com/linux/repos/debian/ stable non-free

# Beryl project
deb http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/ edgy main-edgy

# GPG beryl-project.org:

#wget http://ubuntu.beryl-project.org/[email protected] -O- | sudo apt-key add -

# Trevino Repository (Flash 9 Beta,gnash, and many more)
deb http://3v1n0.tuxfamily.org edgy 3v1n0
deb-src http://3v1n0.tuxfamily.org edgy 3v1n0

# GPG tuxfamily.org:
#wget http://3v1n0.tuxfamily.org/EDD1E155.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

I hope these updates help! ;-)

Teaching Linux and Linux on the Mainframe, zSeries at EPO!

Spent the last week teaching basic Linux and Linux on the zSeries (based on my redbook, Linux on S/390) at the European Patent Office. This was a hybrid course which kept me on my toes as the Mainframe section has a lab environment setup in the States (Atlanta).

I enjoyed this very much, a great group of students with one of the best interacting groups I have had the pleasure of teaching for a week. Special thanks to Luc and Eric for keeping me company during Lunch!

Good luck to the EPO with their future endeavors with Linux on their zSeries! ;-)

Mini dies on me just before departure!

The Mini needs it APK check in Feb 2007, so last weekend I arranged for time in a friends garage to see what the damp conditions of our winter here so far had done to the poor thing. I spent most of the day with sandpaper and a small screwdriver, opening and sanding contact for a multitude of lamps, switches and such that were not working correctly. Hell, I had mildew growing on the steering wheel if you can believe that!

I have removed all carpets to dry and will leave them out of the car until the winter is over. I have removed the door panels too, no need to watch the MDF panels rot away. I jacked up the car and removed each wheel to inspect the various components under the car, nothing to note. I started the car at the end of the day and all was well.

Sunday I dropped in to pick up the Mini for my trip to Rijswijk for teaching job at the European Patent Office (one week course), but the Mini will not start… sigh. As I only had a few hours and then needed to go, I called the Auto Club (I paid for it, so why not use it) which resulted in telling me that the spool (bobine in Dutch) was broken. I had no electrical for spark generation at the spark plugs. I let them tow it off for delivery to my garage on Monday and had to take the train to my hotel.

Just picked it up this morning and the costs were around 240 euros for a new spool, new spark plugs (somebody broke one… I think the auto club during trouble shooting) and a new rubber around the steering column (protects for dirt and such, old one was split). New APK and off I go. Bummer I could not get this done myself due to the time constraints, but it rides great.

Only point of interest is now that my emergency lights are not working (apparently not part of the APK checks), quick check shows no power to the switch at all… have to troubleshoot this some more soon.

Problems with upgrade from Ubuntu Dapper to Edgy (dpkg failure messages)

Thought someone might benifit from my experiences, as to day I upgraded my Dapper box to Edgy.
I started by just editing the /etc/apt/sources.list and changing all dapper entries to edgy.

Then the the following problems started to show up and this is how I fixed them:

# this ran fine.
#
$ sudo aptitude update

# this failed with errors about too many failed dpkg 
# subprocesses and gave me a huge list of failing to 
# configure python-* packages and diverse misc packages.
#
$ sudo aptitude dist-upgrade

# next I tried to fix one of the failing packages:
#
$ sudo dpkg --force-depends --force-overwrite --configure python-imaging
Setting up python-imaging (1.1.5-10build1) ...
pycentral: pycentral pkginstall: already exists: 
/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/PIL/__init__.py
pycentral pkginstall: already exists: 
/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/PIL/__init__.py
dpkg: error processing python-imaging (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
python-imaging

# the fix is to remove the offending section in site-packages 
# and then rerunning the configure line above.
#
$ sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/PIL/*
$ sudo dpkg --force-depends --force-overwrite --configure python-imaging
Setting up python-imaging (1.1.5-10build1) ...

# now that worked for all but the acpid package which 
# gave this error message:
#
$ sudo dpkg --force-depends --force-overwrite --configure -a
Setting up acpid (1.0.4-5ubuntu4) ...
* Loading ACPI modules...
...done.
* Starting ACPI services...
invoke-rc.d: initscript acpid, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing acpid (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
acpid

# solution:
$ sudo killall acpid
$ sudo dpkg --force-depends --force-overwrite --configure -a
Setting up acpid (1.0.4-5ubuntu4) ...
* Loading ACPI modules...
...done.
* Starting ACPI services...
...done.

# finished off now with a final dist-upgrade and done!

How to - Setup exim4 on Ubuntu Linux machine.

So I don't have to go looking for this information each time I try to setup my email client exim (exim4 currently) I will place the how to do it here. I want to setup a simple mail setup with all mail being relayed via my SMTP ISP host and only retrieving mail via pop or imap clients.



Here is what you do:

# install exim4 first if not already installed.
#
$ sudo aptitude install exim4

#  this will start the configuration tool and questions that lead to a valid
# config file.
#
$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config

# answer no to split files, I like a single config file.

# choose mail-sent-by-smart-host and no-local-delivery as my ISP
# will be my SMTP relay and I don't need to pull mail down to my
# machines.

# enter your hostname, provided by your ISP most of the time.

# set listening on hosts to 127.0.0.1 as I am only sending outgoing
# mail and retrieving via pop or imap clients.

# I have no domains I wish to receive mail for, so leave the next option
# on the default of local host.

# visible domain name for local users I set to my ISP given domain name.

# outgoing mail host for sending is your ISP given SMTP server.

# for DNS queries I answered 'no', as this is the last question it ends
# and restarts the MTA (exim), time to test it by sending an email!

Pretty easy no? ;-)

Pat on the back for eGroupWare work!

At the end of a meeting with my boss yesterday I was handed an envelop. I was told this was for work done over the last year and a half, managing the migration of our Institute from Netscape Calendar to eGroupWare.

It was a letter from our Decan stating that my efforts and extra hours put in on weekends and evenings had not gone unnoticed. A small token of appreciation was included.

I was very pleased that someone had noticed the work involved and the contribution that eGroupWare has been making to the functioning of our Institute for some time now. I would also like to note that it IS possible to profit from Open Source / Free Software.

I continue to support and attempt to help the eGroupWare development team. I would also like to thank them for their work that does not always get rewarded, but is invaluable to the project. I also look forward to our continued relationship as our Institute continues to provide suggestions and input to make eGroupWare a better product. Thanks guys!

I got the Daddy prize!

Yesterday I was about to head off to work in the morning as usual. In a bit of a hurry to catch the next train I was pulling my bike out of the shed when I hear a knocking on the glass back door. I look up and my daughter is trying to get my attention by waving that I need to come back with a worried look on her face (she is 2 and 1/2 years old).

I hurry back to the door, unlock it and ask her in a bit of a hurried voice, “What’s the matter?” She says, “Daddy, you forgot this.” and holds up something. She wants me to take one of her favorite toys, a small Duplo kid sleeping in a bed. She wants me to have this today… me?

When I take it from her, she gives me a kiss on the cheek, smiles as only a small child can and says, “Bye bye Daddy!” before running back into the living room.

I am stunned. If you have every read some of the books by Robert Fulghum, you might remember a short story about the ‘Daddy prize.’ It is hard to describe this totally unexpected moment in words, but I felt like the most special person on the planet. Just because this little girl trusted me with her favorite things.

I put them in my bag, safely I might add, to avoid any possibility of losing them during my ride to and from work. I also ensured that I returned them that night when I got home from work. Again that earned me a big smile as she said, “Thank you, Daddy!”

It’s good to be the king! ;-)

Adding subscription and bookmark buttons to your WordPress!

Though you can find this in the WordPress Guides, I thought it might be nice to show it here again with the corrections in place to make it all work:

<h2>Subscribe/bookmark:</h2>
<ul>

<li>
 <a href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" 
 title="<?php _e('Syndicate this site using RSS'); ?>" target="subscriptions">
 <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/img/add-rss2.0.png"
 alt="<?php _e('Syndicate this site using RSS'); ?>" width="80" height="15" />
 </a>
</li>

<li>
 <a href="<?php bloginfo('comments_rss2_url'); ?>" 
 title="<?php _e('The latest comments to all posts in RSS'); ?>"
 target="subscriptions">
 <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/img/comments-rss.png"
 alt="<?php _e('The latest comments to all posts in RSS'); ?>" 
 width="80" height="15" />
 </a>
</li>

<li>
 <a href="http://www.bloglines.com/sub/<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" 
 target="subscriptions">
 <img src="http://www.bloglines.com/images/sub_modern1.gif" 
 alt="Subscribe with Bloglines" width="94" height="20" />
 </a>
</li>

<li>
 <a href="http://www.newsburst.com/Source/?add=<?php 
 bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" target="subscriptions">
 <img src="http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/newsbursts/btn/newsburst3.gif"
 alt="Add your feed to Newsburst from CNET News.com" width="96" height="20" />
 </a>
</li>

<li>
 <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/preview/*/feed/<?php 
 bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" title="Subscribe in Google Reader">
 <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/img/googleread2.jpg"
 alt="Subscribe in Google Reader" width="91" height="17" />
 </a>
</li>

<li>
 <a href="http://client.pluck.com/pluckit/prompt.aspx?GCID=C12286x053&a=<?php 
 bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>&t=<?php bloginfo('name'); ?>        "
 target="subscriptions"><img src="http://www.pluck.com/images/pluck/pluspluck.png"
 alt="Subscribe with Pluck RSS reader" width="91" height="17" />
 </a>
</li>

<li>
 <a href="http://add.my.yahoo.com/rss?url=<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>"
 title="Add to My Yahoo!" target="subscriptions">
 <img src="http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/my/addtomyyahoo4.gif" 
 alt="Add to My Yahoo!" />
 </a>
</li>

<li>
 <a href="http://www.newsgator.com/ngs/subscriber/subext.aspx?url=<?php 
 bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" 
 title="Subscribe in NewsGator Online" target="subscriptions">
 <img src="http://www.newsgator.com/images/ngsub1.gif" 
 alt="Subscribe in NewsGator Online" width="91" />
 </a>
</li>

<li>
 <a href="http://my.msn.com/addtomymsn.armx?id=rss&ut=<?php bloginfo('rss2_url');
 ?>&tt=CENTRALDIRECTORY&ru=http://rss.msn.com'"
 target="subscriptions"><img src="http://sc.msn.com/c/rss/rss_mymsn.gif" 
 alt="Add to My MSN" />
 </a>
</li>

<li>
 <a href="http://feeds.my.aol.com/add.jsp?url=<?php bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>"
 title="Subscribe in your AOL" target="subscriptions">
 <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/img/addtomyaol.gif"
 alt="<?php _e('The latest comments to all posts in RSS'); ?>"
 </a>
</li>

<li>
 <a href="http://www.rojo.com/add-subscription?resource=<?php 
 bloginfo('rss2_url'); ?>" target="subscriptions">
 <img src="http://www.rojo.com/skins/static/images/add-to-rojo.gif"
 alt="Subscribe in Rojo" width="52" height="17" />
 </a>
</li>

<li>
 <a href="http://www.furl.net/storeIt.jsp?t=<?php bloginfo('name');
 ?>&u=<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>" title="Furl It!" target="subscriptions">
 <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/img/furlit.png"
 alt="Furl It!" width="80" height="15" />
 </a>
</li>

<li>
 <a href="http://digg.com/submit" title="Digg It!" target="subscriptions">
 <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/img/digg.gif" alt="Digg It!"
 width="80" height="15" />
 </a>
</li>

<li>
 <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" 
 src="http://www.spurl.net/jsspurl.php"></script>
</li>

</ul>

Don't forget to get this tarball of the button images and unpack in your theme directory.

Amy arrives safely in NL!

Year in review 2006!

I like to take a quick look back at some of the major events in my life over the last year, not only in the private sphere but including my software and sporting milestones too.

This year started with a trip to the states for me, visiting family and my best friend that was just back from Iraq. It was a very nice trip with a surprise phone call from my wife telling me that we were expecting our second child!

I was able to finish up all the major project on our house that were in the planning, such as a new brick path in the backyard, finishing off the loft and fixing up the second room for my daughter in expectation of our second child.

In the summer vacation we were on the route of the 3rd stage of the Tour de France, which was very exciting to see! I had pretty much just started cycling myself at the end of last year so it was nice to be in Limburg and to climb many of the better known hills in the Netherlands.

Unfortunately a month later I crashed on my bike and broke my left hand, pretty much ending my cycling for the year (did ride a bit since then, but the weather has turned bad so that was that for this year). My total for the year was a single flat tire and over 2700 km’s (and around 1300 km’s on my bike I ride to work)!

Just before the World Series started my wife arranged for digital television here which gives me the NASN and all the live USA sports one could wish for! I was in heaven and finally saw a World Series game live!

For Halloween I arranged for my daughter to be able to trick or treat in the neighborhood. This was greeted with such enthusiasm by everyone that we ended up with a rather large group going door to door and many new faces that want to be part of the event next year!

I was also surprised with the naming of my best friends baby boy to include my name! An honor and a treat to see ones name being passed on: Matej Eric Roth, my little buddy!

On the software front, AbTLinux has taken off with another student group providing the requirements for our configManager. I have started working on the design and implementation of our package manager and much more, see the site!

My Publication Management System (PMS) was adopted by the entire Computer Science institute after being used at our departmental level for over a year. This was good news as it gives me a larger user base and more feedback to improve on this software.

Of course, the biggest event of the year is only a few weeks old and lying next to me on the couch as I write this… my son, Max Orson Marius Jody Schabell! We have been truely blessed this year!

From my family to yours, we wish you a happy new year!

A baby boy!

This one is a bit of a personal posting, to mark the birth of my baby boy! He arrived in this world today, big (4885 grams and 55cm) and very hungry!

I will be taking off the rest of the year to relax (all you fathers out there know that ‘relax’ is a relative term here in this context with a two year old and a new baby in the house) and enjoy the family addition. ;-)

How Google ranks our pages?

I read a very interesting article at the American Mathimatical Society about how Google works the Internet and comes up with an quantitative value for the relevance of your page(s):

How Google Finds Your Needle in the Web’s Haystack

I wanted to post this as a follow up to my previous entry, “Google page ranking tools”, so now we have a better idea what these tools are reporting! ;-)