Asa Jay's weblog

I recently installed SUSE Linux 10.0 on my notebook computer and after using it for a day, I’m not sure it’s really better than previous versions for user customization. I have not installed a version SUSE Linux since before it was acquired by Novell. The last real lnstall I did was SUSE 8.2 on a home and work machine.

SUSE 8.2 was fantastic in it’s ease with which I could change things, like the GRUB boot screen or the KDM login screen. It looked decidedly Linux and was a far cry from Windows; a welcome difference from Windows. It was only a couple years ago, that Novell purchased SUSE Linux and has been working on it themselves. Now, with the latest version, 10.0, I find myself looking at screens closer to Windows, than Linux.

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I recently took a Saturday, and installed SUSE Linux 10.0 to my new notebook computer. The installation was to the hard disk this time, versus the Knoppix boot I had done previously. Installing to the hard disk went smoothly and I was smiling happy by the end of the day.

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Running Knoppix 4.0.2 on an HP ze2315us
(Last updated: 9 Jan 2006)

General Hardware Specifications of HP ze2315us:

• Processor: 1.8 GHz Mobile AMD Sempron™ processor 3000+ with AMD PowerNow!™ Technology. / No Issues
• Video Display: 15.0″ XGA TFT Brightview Display (1024 x 768) / No Issues
• Video Processor: ATI RADEON® XPRESS 200M IGP / No Issues
• Memory:512MB 333MHz DDR System Memory (2 Dimm) / No Issues
• Hard Disk: 60GB (4200RPM) Hard Drive / No Issues
• Floppy: None / Integrated Network: Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector) / Untested
• Internal Modem: High speed 56k modem / Untested
• CD/DVD: DVD±R/RW and CD-RW Combo Drive with Double Layer Support / CD and DVD read operations tested fine. Writing operations untested
• Wireless: 54g™ 802.11b/g WLAN with 125HSM / SpeedBooster support / No Issues, requires additional work to install
• Sound: Altec Lansing / No Issues

Basic Installation of Knoppix 4.0.2:

Knoppix 4.0.2 is a great distribution for testing the functionality of a new PC. It comes as a “live CD” distribution. This means you can simply insert it to the CD drive and reboot the machine. The latest version of Knoppix can be obtained from one of the hosted download mirrors.

This How-To will not cover installing Knoppix to the hard disk of a ze2315us. The author is simply documenting the fact Knoppix will boot and run on this system and appear to operate normally, to include video, sound and wireless networking. For information about installing Knoppix to the hard drive, please refer to these instructions. Be forewarned however, this author assumes you have a good working knowledge of how Linux works, how partitioning works and that you know what you are doing.

It is assumed, that if Knoppix works from the live CD distribution, then is should work even better when installed to the Hard disk of the computer.

After inserting the Knoppix 4.0.2 CD and rebooting, Video and Sound came right up. The only item not working was wireless networking.

Setting up additional features (Wireless) for Knoppix 4.0.2

To get wireless working, I initially referred to this posting from the Linux on Laptops website. This gave me a good idea of what I needed to do. At first, I tried using the tools included with Knoppix, to point the ndiswrapper to the appropriate file in the MS Windows folders. When that didn’t work, for whatever reason, I then reboot into Windows, and downloaded the latest drivers for the Wireless chipset from the HP web site. I installed these to a location I could easily find once I rebooted into Knoppix. Once I had the new drivers downloaded, it was a breeze to install.

• Boot Knoppix from CD
• Using a file manager (such as Konqueror), copy the BCMWL5.inf and BCMWL5.sys files to the /home/knoppix directory. This will help you find them faster.
• Open a terminal window (note: I may make notes in the following commands, if so, they are preceeded with “/*” and end with */”
• bash# su – /* you need to be the super user, knoppix should not ask you for the password, if it does, it’s “knoppix” */
• bash# /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -i /home/knoppix/bcmwl5.inf /* I assume you copied the files to home/knoppix. Pay attention to capitization, in my case, the file names were in all lowercase. */
• bash# /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -l
• you should see:

  Installed ndis drivers:
  bcmwl5          driver present, hardware present

• bash# /usr/sbin/ndiswrapper -m
• you should see:

  Adding "alias wlan0 ndiswrapper" to /etc/modprobe.conf

• bash# modprobe wlan0 /* this will install the newly created module, so you can use the wireless */
• At this point, the blue light on the silver Wireless button, should come ON.

We aren’t finished yet. The wireless circuitry has been activated, but it still needs some brains to function. You now have to configure networking. Please note, in my case, I assigned static IPs for my internal network. In your case, you may need to use DHCP. You may need to play with these next settings a little, to get it all working.

• Go to the panel and click on the Penguin icon, which should pop up a bubble with “Knoppix”, from now on, I will refer to this button as the “Penguin” button.
• Penguin>Network/Internet>Wavelan configuration

• Enter SSID of the network you wish to connect to, if known. In my case, I typed in my Access point SSID
• Enter Cell Identifier, if known. In my case it was left blank.
• Enter Mode. In my case, it was Managed
• Enter Channel number. In my case, I entered the channel number of my access point.
• Enter WEP key if you have one. In my case, I entered the WEP key associated with my access point.
• Enter additional parameters if necessary. In my case, I had none, and simply clicked through all prompts.
• Penguin>Network/Internet>Network card configuration
• You should see two entries, one for the internal lan card, the other for the wireless lan card; wlan0
• Click on wlan0
• Enter DHCP broadcast IP if needed. In my case, I’m using static, so I left this blank. I’m not sure what to enter here if not using static IPs.
• Enter IP, unless doing DHCP. In my case, I entered a static IP I had assigned for this notebook computer.
• Enter broadcast address. I believe the default should do.
• Enter NetMask. I believe the default should do.
• Enter the default Gateway. In my case, I needed to enter the IP of the access point.
• Enter nameservers. I entered the primary nameserver that the access point used.
• It will then drop into the wireless setup you did previously. Click through and verify it is all correct.
• Penguin>Network/Internet>KWiFiManager
• You should see that the Wireless card is active and you are either hooked up to a network (as in my case), or that networks are in range. You’re IP hookup may be different (DHCP versus static), so play with it a bit.
• Start a browser and see if it works.

BE AWARE: Once Knoppic from CD is halted, the entire wireless installation GOES AWAY. In order to make everything persistent, you will need to install Knoppix to the hard disk. However, there is a way around it.

Save the Knoppix configuration:

• Penguin>Configure>Save Knoppix configuration
• Select the items to save (I would strongly suggest saving the Desktop as well)
• Select the destination. I would suggest a USB thumb-drive. On my install, it was listed at /dev/sda1
• Save, then pay attention to the dialog that comes up after the save. It will instruct you on how to use the configuration you just saved.

Next time you boot the Knoppix CD:

• Insert the CD into the CD drive.
• Insert your configuration media. In my case, it was the USB thumb drive
• Boot the system
• At the Knoppix boot prompt, enter:
• boot: knoppix lang= myconfig=scan /* My language was “us”. “scan” tells knoppix to scan for the configuration, which found my USB thumb drive just fine.

Knoppix will then boot fine and grab the configuration information from the saved media. However, I must caution you, I did still have some difficulty. I had to modprobe the driver again, and re-config the card. I’m not sure why, as it should have done it automatically, but I may be wrong. Instead, I typed up a quick script file to handle it all. I then placed that file on the desktop so it was easily available, and made it executable. The script file looks like this:

• #!/bin/bash
• sudo modprobe wlan0 /* install the driver */
• sudo ifdown wlan0 /* bring the interface down just for good measure */
• sudo netcardconfig /* this brings up the same configuration you used before, all entries should be good, but check */
• sudo ifup wlan0 /* bring up the interface again */

And that should do it. Again, if Knoppix is installed to the hard disk, and after the wireless has been inititially configured, it should all work every time. Note, you may have to edit the system configuration to make sure the wlan0 module is installed on boot-up. This author assumes you can work that through on your own.

Items that appear to work:

• Video resolution is 1024×768
• Keyboard repeat rate is annoying on start up, but can be adjusted in the Configuration panel
• Mouse sensitivity is annoying on start up , but can be adjusted in the Configuration panel
• Power messaging (i.e. battery level) appears to work
• USB thumb-drives appear to work. (tested with Sandisk Cruzer Mini 256M)
• Sound works
• Ctrl+Alt+Fx appears to work, in order to switch to other consoles.

Unresolved Items:

• CD and DVD burning were not tested
• Wired Ethernet was not tested (but the card shows up in the network configuration)
• The modem has not been tested, and might not be very soon.
• Video out the external jack was not tested
• Pressing the Wireless key (silver) will not necessarily disable the wireless card (in Linux)
• Other Hot-Keys (function-blue keys) not tested

Overall, I am pleased with how well Knoppix works on this notebook. I started to do a hard disk installation, but Knoppix does not come with a disk partitioning tool that is smart enough to simply “re-size” my Windows partition without blowing it away, so I’ll have to use another tool for that. At least, it -looked- like it wanted to blow away my Windows away, so I’m holding off. My next work will be to try and install SUSE 10, which should be arriving ala Amazon any day now.

I hope this has been useful to you.

Asa Jay

. . . or “How I upgraded WebCalendar from 0.9.4, to 1.0.2”

For those who are paying attention, (as if anyone is really reading this), I have just finished an upgrade to my WebCalendar.  This serves two purposes.  Mainly, so I can get to my schedule no matter where I am, and second, to let others who would like to know my goings-about, to know what I am up to.  I spent a good deal of time yesterday, making the upgrade.

The author of WebCalendar keeps a homepage here, where you can find out the latest news, get information on the product, download, etc.  The product is also linked from Sourceforge.net with an immediate re-direct at the moment.  It was here that I found updated versions available, and the documentation I needed to get it installed and working properly.  Of course, nothing comes cheap, as they say.  It was not without some pain and frustration that I finally got it to work.

Upgrade summary:

– Export calendar in iCal format, to local drive
– Use phpMyAdmin to remove all tables from the database
– Delete all old files in the webcalendar directory (note: I had no specially modified pages)
– Install new webcalendar files in old top-level directory (to preserve proper database paths)
– Use phpMyAdmin to execute SQL Query using provided tables-mysql.sql file (this builds the new tables)
– Delete all cookies for WebCalendar (this is a necessary step as authentication has changed)
– Goto the WebCalendar page in a browser
– Configure the administrative options
– Test
– Import iCal file from local hard drive
– Done

The cookies thing was a killer, and actually delayed my success by at least an hour or more.  It wasn’t until the next day that I really found out it was all about the cookie, because all I knew, was that after the install, I kept getting a “login” error message, but everything seemed to be fine and checked out.  Once I finally closed my browser and re-opened it, all went well.  I documented my frustrations and my progress on the Help/Troubleshooting forums at Sourceforge.  Not knowing why it worked after closing my browser, I checked the next day and someone had posted a note about cookies.  Ah, it all started to make sense.

The rest was pretty straight-forward.  You might note, if you are upgrading from a previous version, the upgrade notes suggest you take each version a step at a time.  This might be a good idea if you have a huge database and don’t wish to simply download your calendar into an iCal file.  Every other upgrade has instructions on performing a bunch of sql table commands, which I would rather just bypass.  So I figured I would.

The only information that I really needed to keep, was the actual data in the database for all my appointments.  This was easy enough to extract using the export utility in WebCalendar.  Once I had the data out, it was simply a matter of using phpMyAdmin to delete all the tables in the database, without actually deleting the database.  I had to delete all the old tables because at first, I tried to do the tables-sql query, but got an error about duplicate table entries.  Thus, I just deleted the old, then ran the query and the new tables built just fine.  From my perspective, this saved a lot of headache trying to perform each table modification, for each release.

Later, after entering the database information in the admin page that first comes up, all I had to do was import the iCal file and everything was restored.  Now I had the latest stable release of code, a much sharper looking interface, more options, and I was about to install an RSS feed.  Then I hit the cookie problem, but I’ve covered that already.

One of the reasons I had started down the upgrade path, was so that I could use the new RSS Feed feature.  Well, as it turns out, the latest stable release does not contain the RSS feed code yet; the beta of 1.1 does.  Not wishing to play with an unkown quantity (the unreleased version), I decided to at least move up to the latest stable version.  I also found they had perfected an RSS php script that would be integrated to the next release.  Well, there it was.

I downloaded and installed the rss.php file to the root of my WebCalendar.  I changed the default user from __public__ to my username, and then had to enable public access in the administration panel, and in my personal settings panel.  I also enabled the header file, and edited it to include the RSS feed code.  Once that was all accomplished, the RSS feed appeared in the address bar of Firefox.  I was able to successfully add it to my bookmarks, and it displays the next 10 events.  It looks like it works as advertised.  I’m very pleased.

In summary, I now have an upgraded WebCalendar, with RSS feed.  Very cool.

Asa Jay

Briefly: How I got Knoppix 4.x to work on my new HP ze2315us to include sound, video and wireless.
Related blog postings (as I have time to write them):

– Knoppix 4.0.2 on HP ze2315us

– SUSE 10.0 on HP ze2315us

After over four years of using a refurbished HP n5120 notebook computer, I found it was time to upgrade. Rather, it was time to buy a new one, not that the old one doesn’t work anymore, it does. The old one performs marvelously, it’s just getting a bit slow and outdated. After looking through the ads in Sunday’s paper, I found what looked to be a good deal at Office Depot for an HP model, so I took a look the next day, Monday.

What I came away with, was not the advertised special, but rather, another clearance model that was sold out, except for the display model. This fact alone got me an additional 10% off the posted price. Between the 10% display model discount, the $200 Office Depot rebate and the $50 HP rebate. . . my end cost (once rebates are received) will be about $550. Though not “feature packed”, this notebook has everything I should need for the foreseeable future.

I purchased an HP ze2315us. It would appear to be a special model, similar to those greatly discounted models given away by Wal-Mart earlier this Christmas. It has an AMD Sempron processor, 512MB RAM, a 60G Hard disk, a couple of USB ports, and other standard I/O. It does however, lack a docking port of any kind, which I’m only a little bummed about, and does not contain the additional two USB ports, or media card ports of the full-feature model. At first, I was very disappointed, mostly at myself because I hadn’t thought to look closely enough when I first purchased it; I was in lust with the price. And after trying Ubuntu 5.10 Live and Knoppix 3.2, without full success, I almost took it back. That all changed after a little research on the internet.

Enter Linux on Laptops, where I found at least one other person had tried, and there were testimonials about Linux working on other similar HP models. Okay, it was worth a little more trying.

The Plan:
– Download and burn a copy of SUSE 10.0 Live DVD
– Try a burn of Knoppix 4.x
– Try different boot parameters on the Ubuntu Live CD

The Results:
– Ubuntu still won’t work
– Knoppix, was a total success
– SUSE 10.0 looks good as well.

The short story:
I started off with the Ubuntu 5.10 live CD, rebooting several times and passing it various boot paramaters such as vga=771, noapic, pci=noacpi, etc. all with no luck. The system would boot through to the graphic interface but not actually build it on the screen. I would get an error message about the graphic display not being correct, and then before I had a chance to answer yes, or no to reviewing the problem, the system would start respawning endlessly. I was totally helpless. So I finally gave up on Ubuntu. It may be noted however, the disc I was using works fine in another desktop system. So, strike one against the new HP notebook. Let’s move on the Knoppix.

I have Knoppix actually installed on my other HP notebook, in a dual boot partition. I can run either Windows, or Knoppix, selected at boot time. It’s worked very well on that computer. However, when I tried that same version of Knoppix on the ze2315us, it didn’t quite work as desired. First, though it -did- build the graphic display properly, there was -no- sound, and wireless was right out.

Now I should explain that my older HP has no internal wireless card; I have to use PCMCIA or USB wireless devices, and I’ve never actually got anything working via Linux. My hope here was that systems have progressed to a point that I might be able to use the internal wireless with Linux. So I needed to do some investigation. Right off the bat, I now knew the old version of Knoppix I was using, wasn’t going to work, but I also knew there had been several revisions of Knoppix since the version I was using.

I grabbed my latest Knoppix burn from work and proceeded to try it out on the new notebook. The first thing I noticed was that sound worked; I immediately squirmed in my seat, this might work after all. The keyboard repeat rate was extremely annoying and virtually un-adjustable since I was running a live CD at the moment, but I got through it. The major work involved trying to get the wireless working.

Knoppix 4.x comes with some tools for working with wireless, this was the good news. The bad news was, it wasn’t quite working as well as I wanted. After doing some reading from Linux on Laptops, I found that one person had to install the drivers using the ndiswrappers. Knoppix comes with a utility that is supposed to configure the ndiswrapper once you point to the .inf file for the driver you need. In my case, it just didn’t work; the utility kept telling me the file was corrupt, or failed to load. This meant I had to do a few things by hand. Working from instructions found on another site linked from Linux on Laptops, I manually installed the drivers using the ndiswrapper. Everything checked out just as it was in those instructions. Then using things like ifconfig, and the WLAN Configurator in Knoppix, before long, the Wireless LED was ON, telling me the wireless was active. Then using the Knoppix wireless utility for connections, I was able to connect to my home wireless network and actually surf the internet.

Well, that did it. I was sold. I got sound, I got video, right off the bat using Knoppix 4.x. I was able to get wireless using the ndiswrapper; I got all the functionality I really needed. At this point I was very glad I had not taken the notebook back to the store, and instead had invested a little more time in discovery. Next, I was going to try the SUSE 10.0 Live DVD, because when I install Linux, it will most likely be a SUSE install.

Now one must remember, that because I was using Knoppix from a live CD, all changes I made while running would be lost. Therefore, once I restarted the computer, all the ndiswrapper stuff I had done to enable wireless connectivity, would be gone. I wasn’t sad about that though, because I knew it worked. At this point, I just needed to see if SUSE was going to work right off, or if it was going to have problems.

SUSE 10.0 live DVD booted just fine. The graphics loaded perfectly. I have not yet tried sound or wireless, as I ran out of time, but I will tonight. Knowing that I was able to get wireless working under Knoppix, I have a high confidence I can get it working under SUSE. As I recall, SUSE does not have a default start-up sound, though I may be wrong, which is why I believe I didn’t hear any sound. I will need to check if sound works under SUSE 10.0 or not, and if not, I’ll see how difficult or easy it is to get working.

I plan to work out the details and document them in separate posts. Once that is done, I will have them linked at the top of this page.

Linux has certainly come quite a long way since I first started playing with it almost 10 years ago. I was pleased at how little I really had to do in the end, to get everything I wanted, working. I am most pleased with how I was able to get it all working on a notebook computer that I got a killer deal on though. Happiness all around.

Asa Jay