Entries Tagged 'Hardware' ↓

Atlast I got wireless working in my Acer Aspire 5050’s Atheros 5006 under the newly released Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron with the madwifi drivers. (BTW the upgrade to 8.04 from 7.10 screwed up my X server and I reinstalled from scratch). Previously I was using the ndiswrapper drivers and they would only work the first 5 minutes. Anyway here is a tutorial on how to get WiFi working if you have one of the Atheros cards.

1. First get the patched madwifi drivers from the site and extract them to some place (maybe your desktop)
2. You need to compile these drivers, so you must sudo apt-get install build-essential.
3. Then cd into that directory which you extracted recently and do a make, sudo make install
4. Then add the following two lines to this file /etc/modules

   ath_pci
   wlan_scan_sta

5. Then make sure that you disabled Atheros from System > Administration > Hardware Drivers (also called Restricted drivers management). If you don’t disable this, the modules which you added in the previous lines wont be loaded.
6. Then restart your system to find a new device named ath0 (when you ifconfig)

PS: I know it has been almost 5 months since I posted here. I am giving the (s/l)ame reason here that I was busy. I haven’t been giving much attention to this blog. If you can give some ideas or suggestions on better managing my time it would really help.

Popularity: 6%

A start-up located in the French Alps near Grenoble is readying a tiny ARM-based Linux single-board computer (SBC) in a USB key form-factor. Calao, based in Sant Martin le Vinoux, is also readying a tiny Linux SBC designed to plug into QIL (quad in-line) IC sockets.

Calao’s USB-9260 USB key-sized SBC measures 3.3 x 1.4 inches (85 x 36 mm). It is based on an Atmel AT91SAM9260 processor, an SoC (system-on-chip) powered by an ARM926EJ-S core clocked at 190MHz. The SoC targets “advanced applications such as GPS application processors,” according to Atmel.

The tiny USB key SBC has 64MB of SDRAM and 256MB of NAND flash. I/O includes a USB 2.0 device port, a 10/100 Ethernet port, and a pair of USB 2.0 host ports. The device also offers a 50-pin expansion interface, although the company has not published the pinout, nor announced any specific daughterboards.

The Calao boards will come pre-installed with the open-source U-Boot bootloader and Linux 2.6-series kernels. GNU toolchains also appear to be available from the company.

[From LinuxDevices]

Popularity: 35%

Linutop is a Linux-based diskless computer. It offers a completely silent, low-power operation in an extremely small package. Its main purpose is to surf the Internet. It is just a small box which has USB ports for attaching the keyboard, mouse and a port to attach a monitor.

Linutop can be used in

• Libraries, schools, universities
• Business and Government offices
• Hotels, hospitals, internet cafes, etc

Specification:

• AMD Geode
• 512 Mb ROM
• 256 Mb RAM
• 4x USB 2.0 ports
• audio in & out
• 100baseT Ethernet
• VGA output
• Size: 9.3 x 2.7 x 15 cm
• Weight: 280 gr

Expandability:

USB2 , Wifi connection, Flat panel,

Softwares:

• AbiWord Word Processor
• Evince PDF reader
• Firefox Web browser
• Gaim instant messenger
• Totem media player

Popularity: 18%

If you want faster boot/reset times on your Linux box, you should consider switching over to OpenBIOS. OpenBIOS can save the time wasted by proprietary BIOS legacy support for MS-DOS and other unnecessary functions.
The proprietary BIOSes typically found in off-the-shelf PCs and boards often account for more than half of total boot time. And, much of this time is spent loading drivers and compiling information useful to legacy OSes such as DOS, but largely useless and redundant when using a modern OS such as Linux, which tends to do its own hardware probing, and load its own hardware drivers.

This problem can be avoided by replacing the proprietary BIOS by OpenBIOS. Open implementations can be configured to perform only the required initialisation tasks before booting the OS.

Another approach is to use linux itself to initialise its hardware. The LinuxBIOS loads a small kernel directly on the ROM. This can be easily attained as current hardware has 1-2MB of flash ROM onboard.

Popularity: 19%

This week I had installed Ubuntu Dapper 6.06 and tried really hard at making my SmartLink Internal Modem to work in it. It hadn’t worked in any other distro other than Debian Sarge. I started with a 64 bit version of Ubuntu, but it didn’t help. I followed the instructions in Launchpad and configured the modem. So here are the steps that I followed to make my SmartLink modem work in Ubuntu 6.06.

1. First we need to have a few packages which need to be installed before installing the driver. You need to have build-essential, linux-headers-ARCH (where ARCH is your kernel version and can be found with uname -r in the terminal), fakeroot, module-assistant and debhelper. All these can be installed (with the dependancies) using apt-get.
2. Then you need to install ungrab-winmodem from the linmodem website. Just extract it and make; make install to install it.
3. Download slmodem-2.9.11-20051101.tar.gz from http://phep2.technion.ac.il/linmodems/packages/smartlink/
4. Download sl-modem-daemon_2.9.10+2.9.9d+e-pre2-5build1_i386.deb, but don’t install it yet.
5. Extract the tar.gz file and type make and then sudo make install in the folder where you extracted it.
6. Type sudo modprobe slamr
7. Then install the sl-modem-daemon using dpkg -i sl-modem-daemon_2.9.10+2.9.9d+e-pre2-5build1_i386.deb command.
8. Type sudo /etc/init.d/sl-modem-daemon restart to restart the daemon.
9. This ends the installation part of the modem. Now you can setup your internet connection.
10. I used wvdial and unusually, the modem redialled every time the ISP showed the Login prompt. So, I put in the Stupid Mode = 1 in the /etc/wvdial.conf file.

Popularity: 26%

Are you a device driver developer who longs for a proper device driver development kit for Linux? Here is a Linux Device Driver Kit which is released as a CD image for download. This CD image consists of everything a device driver author would wish for - copy of linux kernel source code, pre-built copies of all of the in-kernel docbook documentation for easy browsing, a full copy of the O’Reilly book, “Linux Device Drivers, third edition”.

There are also few things that would be included in the future releases, like

• searchable index of all documentation
• prettier webpages
• more documentation
• possible inclusion of the KernelNewbies wiki.

There is also a CDROM label included in the root directory which could be printed.

Popularity: 44%

Koobox is a sub $300 GNU/Linux desktop released by Mirus which runs on Linspire GNU/Linux. Though Ubuntu has an OEM installation, I still haven’t used Linspire GNU/Linux.

There are three models that are available with Koobox.

1. Essential: $299
2. Multimedia: $399
3. Performance: $499

Currently it is available only in US and I wonder when it will be available in India. And how much successfull it could be here.

Popularity: 32%

A Taiwanese systems integrator is readying a tiny Linux-powered PC likely to make even Mac Mini owners envious. The AOpen MiniPC measures 6.5 x 6.5 x 2 inches, is powered by an Intel Pentium M or Celeron M processor, and runs Linspire Linux.

The MiniPC will be available initially in two versions. The MP915-C will be powered by an Intel Celeron M 360 processor clocked at 1.4GHz. The MP915-P will be powered by an Intel Pentium M 740 (Dothan) processor clocked at 1.73 GHz. Both models will use Intel’s 915 GM chipset, and come with a 512MB DDR2 400 SODIMM memory module running at 533MHz.

The Celeron-based MiniPC will include a 40GB hard drive, as well as a slot-loading DVD player and CD writer. The Pentium-based model will have an 80GB drive, and adds DVD+/- writing capability. Both models inlcude a pair of USB 2.0 host ports, along with an IEEE 1394 (FireWire) port. Both include Gigabit Ethernet ports, while the Pentium-based model comes pre-installed with an 802.11b/g mini-PCI card.
Both MiniPC’s include DVI (digital video interface) ports, and S-Video.

The A-Open MiniPC will ship this month in the US through TigerDirect, with prices starting at $399, including the Linspire operating system. A $499 version running WIndows XP will also be available. The Pentium M version is likely to have a street price in the US of about $600.

Popularity: 16%

A 122-year-old dairy equipment company has used Linux to control a robotic cow-milking system (the system is robotic, not the cows). Delaval’s “Voluntary Milking System” lets the cows decide for themselves when to be milked, and gives dairy farmers a more independent lifestyle, free from regular milkings. The system runs a 2.4.18 Linux kernel.

Popularity: 52%