Category Archives: Hardware

Getting the Source Code for the Kernel of Linux Fedora 3 Distribution

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Fedora no longer installs the source for its installations so if you need to rebuild the kernel you will need to get the source the easiest way is as follows:

  1. up2date –get-source kernel
  2. Install kernel-.src.rpm (given the default RPM configuration, the files this package contains will be written to /usr/src/redhat/) [NOTE: if this fails you should find the kernel src rpm from your up2date and download it manually and then use rpm -i ]
  3. Change directory to /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/, and issue the following command: rpmbuild -bp –target= kernel.spec (Where target is the desired target architecture.)
  4. On a default RPM configuration, the kernel tree will be located in /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/.
    In resulting tree, the configurations for the specific kernels shipped in Fedora Core 3 are in the /configs/ directory. For example, the i686 SMP configuration file is named /configs/kernel--i686-smp.config. Issue the following command to place the desired configuration file in the proper place for building:
  5. cp ./.config
  6. Issue the following command:  make oldconfig if you want to use the oldconfig or make menuconfig if you want to put in new stuff

then read the readme.txt file which comes with Fedora for building but normally do the following

  1. make
  2. make modules_install install

this now updates grub (if your using it) automatically

Building the Linux-ATM software on Fedora Core 3 on a VIA C3 Processor

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Recently I built the linux-atm software, which is an atm utility which allows me to use my pci ADSL card on linux.

The latest release is version 2.4.1 which I pulled down off of sourceforge, and I then tried to compile it.  This is what I fell fowl of..

1. The source has four compilation errors which are at lines with default: in the case statements these need ; after them, you can either edit the four bits of source code yourself or get a patched version of the code from here.

2. Then I kept getting the error ‘storage size of req is not know’ and ‘invalid application of sizeof to incomplete type atmif_soic’ which I realised that I had the paths to my kernel source incorrect.  Now I put in a symbolic link to the source so /usr/src/linux pointed to /usr/src/redhat/BUILD/kernel-2.6.9/linux-2.6.9/include [ which is where the source really was ].  So to correct this error I typed this before running the configure of linux-atm.

CFLAGS=-I/usr/src/linux ./configure

and that got me over that problem.

3.  Then I got the error ‘config.h:6:2 error including kernel header in userspace use the glibc headers instead’ in atmdev.h to get around this I changed the line config.h to autoconf.h

Then it all worked and everything was installed into /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/sbin.

Hope that has helped someone.  The linux-atm package has been around for sometime but I didnt think the documentation or notes about how to change the path to pick up your distributions source code was that clear.

SPV C500 replaces my old SPV E200 on an Orange Tariff

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I saw a couple of weeks ago that Orange are now doing the new SPV C500 Microsoft Smart Phone as a free upgrade, so thought I would take advantage of that when my plan was up for renewal.  Initial thoughts on the new phone is that it is lightweight and bulk free compared to the other phone and it seems not to eat batteries. 

Bad thoughts are that there is no desk holster available unlike the E200 which is a little bit of a pain but there is a usb cable so it can plug into it.  Other downsides are that the SD has to go in under the battery and this is fiddly and took me a little while until I got to work out exactly how it slots in 🙂

Other than that upgrade was seamless and it certainly does feel good.  Here are the shots of it.

 

After using it for a couple of months, I would even say its one of the best phones I have ever owned !!

Voice Over IP

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A friend of mine just recommended using Skype which is a voice over IP product. 

Had a go and I must say it works very well, I have used other products which are similar and run across the internet and are very choppy but this has fantastic quality. 

Plus they have hooked up with telecommunications companies to provide access to the normal phone network which means from your computer you can call a normal telephone number in the world for just over a penny a minute.

Fedora Core 2 installation patch for Epia Mini-ITX

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As you may be aware the original Fedora Core 2 installation will just keep rebooting on an Epia Mini-ITX machine.  There are many newsgroups articles about this subject but I believe that they are all a little confusing so here is what I had to do to install Fedora Core 2 on to my Epia Mini-ITX CL600 machine.

First download the patch from http://people.redhat.com/arjanv/c3boot-2.iso and burn it on to a cd, then boot off of the new burnt cd.

The next set of instructions assume the text version of the installation

  • Go into the text installation by typing linux text at the prompt
  • Keep going through the installation until you get a warning message that the fedora disc is not in the drive, swap the original Fedora Core 2 disc 1 back into the drive.
  • Go through the normal installation steps for Fedora Core 2 until it says the installation is complete, then remove the CD then type Ctrl-Alt-F2 to get a console window.
  • The original Fedora Core 2 disc had already ejected so replace that with the patched CD that you burnt before starting the installation.
  • I then made a directory in /mnt/sysimage called source.
  • I then mounted the patched cd onto that directory [Note: the cdrom device is in tmp on my installation not /dev like other instructions say]  mount /tmp/cdrom /mnt/sysimage/source -t iso9660
  • Then chroot /mnt/sysimage
  • rpm -Uvf /mnt/sysimage/source/kernel*
  • once that has finished type Ctrl-Alt-F1 to go back to the original installation
  • Reboot as per original installation and it should boot into a working kernel

Coolermaster Cool Drive 3 : FORSALE

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Ok put my five Coolermaster Cool Drive 3 enclosures on ebay as they are now cluttering the bedroom.  If your interested in buying these or any other bits I have in the gallery under “bits for sale” please drop me a line.

Not sure how these will go as they again are a specialised item.  Selling at a good price though £3.00 each as these retail at about £18.00 a go.

POP3: unable to scan $HOME/Maildir?

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Ok I run qmail here and funny thing was outlook wasnt logging into it. Thought I had been hacked or something. To see what the problem was I telnetted into my qmail box using

telnet mail.farrowcomputing.com 110

port 110 is the port designated to pop3, then put in your username

user  “username”

then password

pass “password”

and on my system was then seeing “Unable to scan $HOME/Maildir” looked into it and had 6000 spam messages, now the limit I have for mails is quite low so you either need to up it or delete some of the messages from the linux box running qmail or you will need to put the softlimit up, ie.

Try to increase the softlimit for pop3d which is found in your pop3d run script such as /var/qmail/service/pop3d/run (for e.g.): 

blah blah… softlimit -m 2000000 to higher value.

 

Samba and a Windows 2003 domain

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If you were getting permission denied while mounting a w2k3 share onto a linux box then here is a suggestion to get around that

• On the Win2K3 server select Domain Controller Security Policy from the Administrative Tools menu
• Navigate to Local Policies|Security Options
• Disable “Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (always)”
• Since FC2 you will also need to disable “Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (if client agrees)”
• You can wait for the policy to propagate or run gpupdate from a command line

 

🙂