Collating info on HP-UX B.11.23 on Itanium

Just got a new toy - a second hand Itanium 2 box. It came with XP 64-bit, but it is now running HP-UX B.11.23. Installation went smoothly; this being the first time I've done this particular combination, I allowed it to run with defaults (which were quite good, especially the partitioning).

Reboot, and the machine is up and running. How disappointing, though - the CDE wouldn't start, complaining about the lack of screens. Not sure at this stage if it is X11R6 configuration, hardware problem or perhaps driver issue! Will google for anything obvious (like unsupported card) later.

In the meantime, decided to brush up on the HP-UX system interrogation tools.

# uname -a
HP-UX itahpux B.11.23 U ia64 0376224781 unlimited-user license

# machinfo
CPU info:
Number of CPUs = 1
Clock speed = 1500 MHz
CPUID registers
vendor information = "GenuineIntel"
processor serial number = 0x0000000000000000
processor version info = 0x000000001f010504
architecture revision: 0
processor family: 31 Intel(R) Itanium 2 Family Processors
processor model: 1 Intel(R) Itanium 2 processor
processor revision: 5 stepping B1
largest CPUID reg: 4
processor capabilities = 0x0000000000000001
implements long branch: 1
Bus features
implemented = 0xbdf0000060000000
selected = 0x0000000040000000
Bus Lock Signal masked

Cache info:
L1 Instruction: size = 16 KB, associativity = 4
L1 Data: size = 16 KB, associativity = 4
L2 Unified: size = 256 KB, associativity = 8
L3 Unified: size = 6144 KB, associativity = 24

Memory = 1524 MB (1.488281 GB)

Firmware info:
Firmware revision = 02.31
FP SWA driver revision: 1.18
IPMI is supported on this system.
BMC version: v01.52

Platform info:
model string = "ia64 hp workstation zx2000"
machine id number = 166cbc0d-e4c5-11d6-8091-7d5ed3512273
machine serial number = TW23200111

OS info:
sysname = HP-UX
nodename = itahpux
release = B.11.23
version = U (unlimited-user license)
machine = ia64
idnumber = 0376224781
vmunix _release_version:
@(#) $Revision: vmunix: B11.23_LR FLAVOR=perf Fri Aug 29 22:35:38 PDT 2003 $
#
# ioscan -k
H/W Path Class Description
=======================================================
root
0 ioa System Bus Adapter (1229)
0/0 ba Local AGP Bus Adapter (122e)
0/0/0/0 graphics AGP Display (10de025b)
0/1 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (122e)
0/2 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (122e)
0/2/1/0 usb NEC USB Interface
0/2/1/0.1 usbhub USB Root Hub
0/2/1/0.1.2 usbhid USB HID Mouse(0)
0/2/1/1 usb NEC USB Interface
0/2/1/1.1 usbhub USB Root Hub
0/2/1/1.1.2 usbhid USB HID Kbd(1)
0/2/1/2 usb NEC USB Interface
0/2/2/0 sideba CMD IDE controller
0/2/2/0.0 ext_bus IDE Primary Channel
0/2/2/0.0.7 target
0/2/2/0.0.7.0 ctl Initiator
0/2/2/0.1 ext_bus IDE Secondary Channel
0/2/2/0.1.0 target
0/2/2/0.1.0.0 disk HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GDR8160B
0/2/2/0.1.7 target
0/2/2/0.1.7.0 ctl Initiator
0/2/3/0 lan HP PCI 1000Base-T Core
0/2/4/0 audio PCI Audio
0/2/4/1 audio Unimplemented Game Port
0/3 ba Local PCI-X Bus Adapter (122e)
0/3/1/0 ext_bus SCSI C1010 Ultra160 Wide LVD
0/3/1/0.1 target
0/3/1/0.1.0 disk FUJITSU MAN3735MP
0/3/1/0.7 target
0/3/1/0.7.0 ctl Initiator
120 processor Processor
250 ba Core I/O Adapter
250/0 ipmi IPMI Controller
250/1 tty Built-in RS232C
250/2 tty Built-in RS232C
250/3 acpi_node Acpi Hardware

# lanscan
Hardware Station Crd Hdw Net-Interface NM MAC HP-DLPI DLPI
Path Address In# State NamePPA ID Type Support Mjr#
0/2/3/0 0x00306E380A81 0 UP lan0 snap0 1 ETHER Yes 119

# bdf
Filesystem kbytes used avail %used Mounted on
/dev/vg00/lvol3 212992 160296 52344 75% /
/dev/vg00/lvol1 311296 61696 247696 20% /stand
/dev/vg00/lvol8 3670016 88608 3554104 2% /var
/dev/vg00/lvol7 3768320 2291768 1465048 61% /usr
/dev/vg00/lvol4 212992 8480 202920 4% /tmp
/dev/vg00/lvol6 2572288 1576840 987696 61% /opt
/dev/vg00/lvol5 32768 8472 24112 26% /home

Could carry on, but this should be sufficient to record the basic configuration.

Most importantly:

# ioscan -funC graphics
Class I H/W Path Driver S/W State H/W Type Description
=======================================================================
graphics 0 0/0/0/0 gvid_core CLAIMED INTERFACE AGP Display (10de025b)

Ubuntu on XPS M1330 - Installing Citrix

Last time I tried Citrix on Ubuntu, it failed, reporting the lack of OpenMotif libraries. Having researched the dependency, I now realise that I need to install libmotif3 first. With the system up to date, and all repositories set up, I can now do it:

root@cherry:~# apt-get install libmotif3
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed
libmotif3
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 1283kB of archives.
After unpacking 3129kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get: 1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/multiverse libmotif3 2.2.3-2 [1283kB]
Fetched 1283kB in 22s (57.8kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package libmotif3.
(Reading database ... 88954 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libmotif3 (from .../libmotif3_2.2.3-2_i386.deb) ...
Setting up libmotif3 (2.2.3-2) ...
Processing triggers for libc6 ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
root@cherry:~# exit
alina@cherry:~$

Now for Citrix: go to Citrix download site: http://www.citrix.com/site/ss/downloads/ and follow the links for "Clients" then "Linux". Identify the tarball (.tar.gz file) for your architecture and download it. Unless you have modified the default browser settings, the citrix client should have landed on your Desktop. By the way, notice that the following steps are done as ordinary user. That means that I am talking here about the Desktop of the user you are logged on as, rather than the desktop of the user "root".

alina@cherry:~$ cd Desktop
alina@cherry:~/Desktop$ tar zxvf en.linuxx86.tar.gz
./
./PkgId
./install.txt
./eula.txt
./readme.txt
./setupwfc
./linuxx86/
./linuxx86/hinst
./linuxx86/linuxx86.cor/
...

The listing above has been concatenated, there should have been a lot more files whizzing in front of your eyes!

In the current location (wherever you were when you unpacked the tarball), there should be the setup script (setu
pwfc). Run it, and follow the prompts. If you accept the defaults (wise move!) then the whole process is relatively painless:

alina@cherry:~/Desktop$ ./setupwfc
Citrix Presentation Server Client 10.6 setup.

Copyright 1996-2007 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

Citrix, Independent Computing Architecture (ICA), Program Neighborhood,
MetaFrame, and MetaFrame XP are registered trademarks and
Citrix Presentation Server, Citrix Access Suite, and SpeedScreen are
trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Microsoft, MS, MS-DOS, Outlook, Windows, Windows NT, and BackOffice are
either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in
the United States and other countries.

All other Trade Names referred to are the Servicemark, Trademark,
or Registered Trademark of the respective manufacturers.

User install mode.

Select a setup option:

1. Install Citrix Presentation Server Client 10.6
2. Remove Citrix Presentation Server Client 10.6
3. Quit Citrix Presentation Server Client 10.6 setup

Enter option number 1-3 [1]: 1

Please enter the directory in which Citrix Presentation Server Client is to be installed.
[default /home/alina/ICAClient/linuxx86]
or type "quit" to abandon the installation:

The parent directory /home/alina/ICAClient does not exist.
Do you want it to be created? [default y]:

You have chosen to install Citrix Presentation Server Client 10.6 in /home/alina/ICAClient/linuxx86.

Proceed with installation? [default n]: y

CITRIX(R) LICENSE AGREEMENT

Use of this component is subject to the Citrix license covering the
Citrix product(s) with which you will be using this component. This
component is only licensed for use with such Citrix product(s).

CTX_code EP_T_A34320

Select an option:

1. I accept
2. I do not accept

Enter option number 1-2 [2]: 1
Installation proceeding...

Checking available disk space ...

Disk space available 117588256 K
Disk space required 4961 K


Continuing ...
Creating directory /home/alina/ICAClient/linuxx86
Core package...
Setting file permissions...
Integrating with browsers...

Integration complete.
Do you want to integrate the Citrix client with KDE and GNOME? [default y]:

Select a setup option:

1. Install Citrix Presentation Server Client 10.6
2. Remove Citrix Presentation Server Client 10.6
3. Quit Citrix Presentation Server Client 10.6 setup

Enter option number 1-3 [1]: 3


This *should* be it. Oh no, not yet! When I downloaded Citric client for RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux), I was able to connect to the server at this point. Here, an essential SSL certificate was missing.

So, one more preparation step, to create a file under the keystore directory, that will store the certificate for SSL Citrix.

Edit a (new) file, called: ~/ICAClient/linuxx86/keystore/cacerts/UTN-USERFirst-Hardware.crt and paste into it the following lines (including those with BEGIN and END):

-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Ubuntu on XPS M1330 - finishing touches (1)

Our intranet is getting more and more comprehensive, and it is becoming more difficult to function without being able to access it. So, although I have resisted it for a long time, I have now accepted that I should be using Citric client, considering that we have a proper and well administered Citrix server farm setup. I have tested it in the past, on that occasion it was RHEL 4. Citrix client (rpm) for Linux worked first time, and I was talking to the intranet within minutes.

Tried the same on Ubuntu, and the first obstacle was the fact that RPMs and Ubuntu are not exactly best friends. Not to worry, there was a tarball (.tar.gz) file. Downloaded it, unpacked it and run the setup script - only to find that some essential libraries were missing. Well, this is what puts people off Linux - having to resolve these kind of dependencies! It transpires that Citrix Client management software requires OpenMotif installed. OpenMotif comes as one of the "x" libraries, and it is missing...

Before downloading the missing libraries (and as I am working on a new Ubuntu install - on a clean machine - without too many experiments) I decided to first update all the software, using Ubuntu's apt-get program.

Quick check for repositories revealed that none have been configured during the install. Could use the front end tool called Synaptic, but it's quicker to hack the configuration file. But first, I time to become the super-user:

alina@cherry:~$ sudo su - root

[sudo] password for alina:


Now navigate into the 'apt' directory: the default configuration template is there, it's the sources.list file, containing software repositories; it just needs tweaking.

Edit the sources.list file, to uncomment selected debian/ubuntu software repositories. I'm new to Ubuntu, and not entirely sure which repositories are best, so initially I chose the main Ubuntu sites, as well as some of the sites (such as universe and multiverse) mentioned a lot on the web.

root@cherry:~# cd /etc/apt

root@cherry:~# grep '^deb' sources.list

deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy main restricted
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy main restricted
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates main restricted
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates main restricted
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy universe
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy universe
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates universe
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates universe
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy multiverse
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy multiverse
deb http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates multiverse
deb-src http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates multiverse

Before apt-get can be run to install anything, the new configuration needs to be kicked into action.

Run:


root@cherry:~# apt-get update


This will have synchronised your local apt-get program with the content and availability of the repositories declared in the configuration file. On my machine, I got the following output:


Get: 1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy Release.gpg [191B]
Get: 2 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main Translation-en_GB [21.3kB]
Get: 3 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/restricted Translation-en_GB [2395B]
Get: 4 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe Translation-en_GB [4405B]
Get: 5 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/multiverse Translation-en_GB [8133B]
Get: 6 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates Release.gpg [191B]
Ign http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/main Translation-en_GB
Ign http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/restricted Translation-en_GB
Ign http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/universe Translation-en_GB
Ign http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/multiverse Translation-en_GB
Get: 7 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy Release [65.9kB]
Get: 8 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates Release [58.5kB]
Get: 9 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main Packages [1075kB]
Get: 10 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/restricted Packages [7664B]
Get: 11 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main Sources [306kB]
Get: 12 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/restricted Sources [2120B]
Get: 13 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe Packages [4065kB]
Get: 14 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe Sources [1226kB]
Get: 15 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/multiverse Packages [158kB]
Get: 16 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/multiverse Sources [56.8kB]
Get: 17 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/main Packages [105kB]
Get: 18 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/restricted Packages [4263B]
Get: 19 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/main Sources [27.5kB]
Get: 20 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/restricted Sources [937B]
Get: 21 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/universe Packages [39.7kB]
Get: 22 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/universe Sources [7563B]
Get: 23 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/multiverse Packages [9215B]
Get: 24 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-updates/multiverse Sources [1702B]
Fetched 7254kB in 2m29s (48.4kB/s)


Unavailable sites will be marked as "Ign", for "ignore". My update manager immediately reported "You can install 142 updates". At the risk that I might forget what the whole exercise was about (get the system to the state where I can install Citrix client to talk to my company's intranet from home), I decided to run the updates. After all, my install CD is rather dated now, and a lot of reported bugs may have been fixed by now. Generally speaking, a blank 'update all' approach may not be the best, but I haven't got the intimate Gutsy knowledge to make a judgement. So, a click on the "Install Updates" at the bottom of the recommended updates list.

[The time is: 12:26. Estimate for the update download time was 1h5m - on my extremely slow 60kB/s connection. The download actually finished at 13:37 - not bad, just 6 minutes out on the estimate...]

The answer is 42

But what is the question?

Not sure why the discussion http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7283155.stm now? But fun reading contributions...

CentOS 5 on SATA drives

Making SATA drives work in Linux still seems a bit of a dark art.

I had a failure yesterday, with CentOS 5 refusing to even enter rescue mode or install procedure, asking for the driver.

Many suggestions are posted on various sites, most of them indicating that changing BIOS settings from SATA to IDE, or even to RAID should allow to get past the problem. None of these worked for me. What did work, was giving all-generic-ide parameter to the kernel.

So, to entering rescue mode (one goes there usually to fix bootloader, such as grub, configuration problems), place you first installation CD (od DVD) in the drive, start the machine, and wait for the boot: prompt. Then type:

boot: linux rescue all-generic-ide

For fresh installs, just start up the machine just as described above, except that you will enter:

boot: linux all-generic-ide

Making the best of VESA drivers in CentOS 5

Teaching in Edinburgh, on machines that flatly refuse to switch between CLI and GUI. Going into any of the CLI (CTRL_ALT_F1 - F6) is no problem, but restarting the X server or switching back from CLI gives random, hardly ever successful results.

Last week a couple of colleagues (Donald and Gary) were saying about dropping resolution, this week one of our techies (Stuart) found advice about vesa. Neither approach worked on its own, but put them together (albeit in a slightly modified way) and all is well.

If your GUI is working
Select:
System --> Administration --> Display (may need to put root's password if logged in as ordinary user)
Select Hardware tab
Configure "Monitor Type" to Generic LCD --> LCD Panel 1024 x 768
Configure "Video Card" to "vesa - Generic VESA-compliant video cards"
Do the OK three times.

I always check the config on RHEL/CentOS before restarting the GUI. Either look inside the configuration file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf, attached below) or check the System-->Administration-->Display-->Hardware settings (note that the vesa driver will be described as "Unknown video card").

To restart the GUI press CTRL-ALT-Backspace - all should be well.

If your GUI is NOT working

If the GUI is broken to the point you can't use the method above, you can hack the file directly, or enter the configuration screen from the command line. For that, log in as root on CLI (enter CLI with CRTL-ALT-F1), then enter:

# system-config-display

The system will use basic GUI settings to 'draw' the menus. Use the solution as provided above to complete the steps.

To start the GUI, the cleanest method I found is to 'recycle' runlevels: change into runlevel 3, then into runlevel 5.

# init 3
Several messages will be printed, when you see one fron "anaconda" hit enter. That will re-print the prompt. Now type:

# init 5

XWindows should start successfully!


===============================================
sample /etc/X11/xorg.conf using defaults for both the server and the monitor
===============================================
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "single head configuration"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "gb"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"

### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
Identifier "Monitor0"
ModelName "LCD Panel 1024x768"
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
HorizSync 31.5 - 48.5
VertRefresh 40.0 - 70.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

Making the best of VESA drivers in CentOS 5

Teaching in Edinburgh, on machines that flatly refuse to switch between CLI and GUI. Going into any of the CLI (CTRL_ALT_F1 - F6) is no problem, but restarting the X server or switching back from CLI gives random, hardly ever successful results.

Last week a couple of colleagues (Donald and Gary) were saying about dropping resolution, this week one of our techies (Stuart) found advice about vesa. Neither approach worked on its own, but put them together (albeit in a slightly modified way) and all is well.

If your GUI is working
Select:
System --> Administration --> Display (may need to put root's password if logged in as ordinary user)
Select Hardware tab
Configure "Monitor Type" to Generic LCD --> LCD Panel 1024 x 768
Configure "Video Card" to "vesa - Generic VESA-compliant video cards"
Do the OK three times.

I always check the config on RHEL/CentOS before restarting the GUI. Either look inside the configuration file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf, attached below) or check the System-->Administration-->Display-->Hardware settings (note that the vesa driver will be described as "Unknown video card").

To restart the GUI press CTRL-ALT-Backspace - all should be well.

If your GUI is NOT working

If the GUI is broken to the point you can't use the method above, you can hack the file directly, or enter the configuration screen from the command line. For that, log in as root on CLI (enter CLI with CRTL-ALT-F1), then enter:

# system-config-display

The system will use basic GUI settings to 'draw' the menus. Use the solution as provided above to complete the steps.

To start the GUI, the cleanest method I found is to 'recycle' runlevels: change into runlevel 3, then into runlevel 5.

# init 3
Several messages will be printed, when you see one fron "anaconda" hit enter. That will re-print the prompt. Now type:

# init 5

XWindows should start successfully!


===============================================
sample /etc/X11/xorg.conf using defaults for both the server and the monitor
===============================================
Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "single head configuration"
Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105"
Option "XkbLayout" "gb"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"

### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
Identifier "Monitor0"
ModelName "LCD Panel 1024x768"
### Comment all HorizSync and VertSync values to use DDC:
HorizSync 31.5 - 48.5
VertRefresh 40.0 - 70.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "vesa"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Videocard0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection

21 January - time to get depressed ?

Today is meant to be the most depressing day of the year.

Considering that Inland Revenue admitted they owed me a lot of money, the sun showed it's shine over Sywell for the first time in weeks and I have managed to complete my dreadful paperwork for the last so-many months of expenses, I've not been doing too badly!

And then a colleague asked me for a couple of slides she wanted to include in her presentation. At this point I realised that my ambitious plans to convert fully to Open Office are flawed. It's the second time in two days I had to rapidly save an '.odp' file into the '.ppt' format, just so other people in the company could use it.

Time to admit defeat. And back to CrossOver Office. Got a professional copy, payed on-line and downloaded the .deb version. All went smoothly. Shame it doesn't allow Office 2007, but Office XP installed without a hitch.

Oh well, the "happy - depressed" balance restored ;-)

Moving to OpenOffice Impress 2.3

Now that my laptop is fully Linux'ised, I am making a brave attempt to convert all my .ppt documents (mostly qa-iq course-related ones) into a Open Document Presentation format. Luckily, our printers use PDF format for printing. That means that it doesn't really matter which office suite I use for the design, as long as I can convert it into a PDF before it's sent to the printers. In fact I bet that nobody is going to notice that I no longer work with the .ppt format (just as nobody noticed that all my timesheets, expenses and all other paperwork is now done in OpenOffice - I just save it as a .ppt file).

On the whole, the compatibility of .ppt and .odp is good. Fonts are still rather dissimilar, and this is one area I will have to investigate (although the rendering of characters imported from .ppt file is sufficiently good for me not to loose sleep over the issue).

What kept me guessing for a long time is the method of setting the notes pages' header and footer. In PowerPoint this is done in Master View --> Notes. However, the .ppt imported into OpenOffice 2.3 treats these headers and footers as standard text boxes. So any change (like document version which we set in the Notes view footer) would have to be done for each page.

Well, in OpenOffice, text to appear on each slide is done in View --> Header and Footer. Once customised, select "Apply to All".

So far, there is just one feature I miss in the Open Office Impress - the style painter. It does now exist in the OpenOffice, but its scope is very limited and nowhere as useful as it is in Power Point.

The Dell saga continues

What a see saw the last few weeks has been. I love my little new dell (some would say it's not so new anymore), and I love Ubuntu. Somehow however, they didn't like each other much. Having search various posts, I strongly believe that Ubuntu 7.10 (gutsy) has been rushed out, and it clearly has bugs, mostly with handling SATA disks and networking.

After my last post, I was installing and fine-tuning various applications, hoping to arrive at the final (and perfect ;-)), of course) system configuration. Disappointingly, but I hit several re-occurring problems, which put the stop to these ambitions... Most of the issues have been well documented by others - inconsistent wireless recognition, many SATA warnings popping on the console (even though actual disk access was fine), very slow desktop start-up, cupsd taking up to 5 minutes to start.

The worst aspect of these problems has been the random, unpredictable nature of them, with problems virtually impossible to reproduce. I'm well used to fixing systems - you expect hiccups, and you anticipate having to dive under the hood of any new version or distribution. This is part and parcel of playing with UNIX or Linux. And one of the great historical attributes of UNIX has been its transparency - you can always get to the bottom of things. Not quite so with the new kernel releases. More and more traditionally user-driven hardware manipulation and control is delegated into kernel's functionality. It's great in some respects - faster, more secure and easier to tie down system. But for an average sysadmin, ability to debug and fix is becoming more obscure and complex, if not difficult.

Re-installing Dell XPS M1330 (Part 4)

Well, the machine is ready for Linux. I have preserved the original software by installing it in a much smaller partition, allowing most disk space to be left for Linux.

Obtain installable Ubuntu CD-ROM
------------------------------------------------
Well, the system is ready for Linux installation. One little detail first - need to get the Linux software itself. I decided to go for the highly recommended Ubuntu, after the less than successful attempt with CentOS. No time to order a ready made CD or DVD, so need to download the ISO image (onto an XP box) and burn the CD disk. One reason for the choice is that this is the distribution that Dell use when pre-installing their machines with Linux.

1. Download Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon (ISO image).

There are numerous sites that will sell disks with the image on it. But if you have a decent bandwidth, it's cheaper to download your own. My bandwidth is useless, but it was still quicker than ordering disks and waiting for delivery.
I got the image from: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download. It took nearly 3 hours for the 712MB image (ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso) to land on my Desktop.

2. Download ISO file burning software (unless you already have it)

Many commercial programs exist. I used a freeware program: ISO Recorder v2 from http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm. Once the ISO Recorder is installed, "Copy image to CD" option will appear when you right-click in the ISO file.

3. Having inserted empty CD in the drive, locate the ISO file you have downloaded, right-click it, and select the "Copy image to CD" option. Follow the steps - it will take few minutes for the new disk to be written.

Boot from the Ubuntu CD and install it on hard disk
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Select "Start or install Ubuntu". Watch the little orange bar for a couple of minutes, then a blank screen for a minute or so, eventually Ubuntu starts the services. This will initially start Ubuntu as Live CD (i.e. run directly off the CD). Linux is at that point in memory (and using the CD). However, we will use this to install Ubuntu permanently into the spare partition on the hard disk.

Double-click the Install icon, to start Install program.

Welcome screen - press "Forward" (notice default is English)

Where are you? - Use the map to locate a city in your timezone (London for me).

Time zone is shown as BST (GMT+1:00) - press "Forward"

Keyboard layout - press "Forward" (unless you are not in the UK, in which case change it! )

Prepare disk space - select "Manual" (see Note 1 below for the rationale of my partition layout that I am suggesting) - press "Forward"

Prepare partitions - on my machine, the current layout showed:

Device Type ... Size Used
/dev/sda
/dev/sda1 fat16 ... 49 MB 33 MB
/dev/sda2 ntfs ... 42952 MB 14700 MB
/dev/sda5 154890 MB unknown
/dev/sda6 fat32 ... 2154 MB 50 MB

Highlight /dev/sda5 and press "Delete partition" - it should now show as "free space"

Highlight the "free space" line and press "New partition".
Fill the form with: - 150 MB ext3 /boot

Highlight the "free space" line and press "New partition".
Fill the form with: - 2000 swap

Highlight the "free space" line and press "New partition".
Fill the form with: - 5000 MB ext3 /

Highlight the "free space" line and press "New partition".
Fill the form with: - 10000 MB ext3 /home

Highlight the "free space" line and press "New partition".
Fill the form with: -10000 MB ext3 /usr

Highlight the "free space" line and press "New partition".
Fill the form with: - 1000 MB ext3 /var

Highlight the "free space" line and press "New partition".
Fill the form with: - 850 MB ext3 /tmp

Highlight the "free space" line and press "New partition".
Fill the form with: - 2500 MB ext3 /spare1

Highlight the "free space" line and press "New partition".
Fill the form with: - 2500 MB ext3 /spare2

Press "Finish", then "Ignore" (if you got it, see Note 2 below)

Migrate Docs and Settings - press "Forward"

Who are you? - fill in the form; press "Forward"

Ready to install

Note 1.
I never trust automatic partitioning tools - they never seem to split the disk in a sensible way.I want to share files with Windows, hence fat32 partition.

I'm of a traditional UNIX school, where a separate partition is used for just about anything ;-). I always have at least one spare partition, for rescuing data from broken partitions, experimenting, trying new or experimental filesystem types, etc.

This time I've ended up with 2 spare partitions, because one of them was going to be vfat type. This didn't work (see Note 2), but I will try changing the type later on, once the system is up and running.

Note 2.
Issues I had during the install:

When partitioning, after creating all partitions I wanted, I have then selected the rest of the disk and assigned the "don’t_use" filesystem type. What a mistake - the process crashed. Waited a long time hoping that the little timer indicating that something is happening would time out and allow me to continue. Nope. Had to cancel the whole procedure and start from scratch (all the way from double-clicking in the Install icon). Second time round tried fat16 instead of fat32. Same problem. Tried to "Ignore" it, but when the actual partitioning started, got a new message:

"Failed to create a file system: The fat 16 file system creation in partition #4 of SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) failed. Press "OK".

This put me back into the partitioner (but I had to select "Manual" again. However, at least the partition information was remembered. Just had to go through each one and allocate type and mount point. At this point, I have also given up on the fat partition, and set it to free space (by deleting it).

Once the complete partitioning process, you need to press "Finish". At this point, the Warning message popped:

"File system doesn't have expected sizes for Windows to like it. Cluster size is 2k (expected 1k); number of clusters is 24026 (47959 expected); size of FATs is 94 sectors (188 expected). I chose to ignore this message and pressed "Ignore".

Re-installing Dell XPS M1330 (Part 3)

Using Dell MediaDirect (TM) 3.3 to partition disk
--------------------------------------------------
Before I move on, I need to give credit to another blogger, who published a quick howto about installing M1330 with dual boot configuration: (http://linuxevangelist.blogspot.com/2007/10/dual-boot-in-dell-xps-m1330-with.html). Without his information, it would've taken me a lot longer to realise that the MediaDirect disk is more than an application. It is a bootable CD, and is important for partitioning and making sure that Vista would be able to make use of the various media buttons the M1330 has (at this point I'm not sure if Linux will be able to use them ).

Installing Vista
--------------------------------------------------
Put Vista disk in the drive and restart the box. Follow the few simple instructions. No problem with the install, except I had to insert the disk several times before it started - I hope I don't have an inherent CD or drive problem! A quick reboot into Vista to confirm it worked - it did, after a fashion. What surprised me is, though, it started into 800x600 resolution! A quick adjustment (Start --> Control Panel --> Appearance and Personalization: Adjust Screen Resolution) and slide the resolution to 1280x800.

Worked fine, but I thought Windows do these things automatically. Hmmm.

Installing Drivers and Utilities (grey Driver and Utilities disk)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Insert the Drivers and Utilities CD disk in the drive. Select "Run..." in the AutoPlay pop up screen. Say "OK" to start. On my machine, the virus wizard showed a warning: "An unidentified program wants access to your computer". Not really knowing what it's about, I can only assume that driver setup.exe is regarded as potential virus. So, selected "Allow". A couple of more "OK" clicks and 30 seconds later the Dell Resource Disk printed a Welcome message with hardware, drivers and hardware utilities being displayed. Close this screen, and you will find that behind it the install wizard is waiting for you to press "Finish". Do that. Eject the disk (with the eject touch key above the main keyboard).

Installing Dell Webcam Manager (blue Driver and Utilities disk)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Insert the Drivers and Utilities CD disk in the drive. Select "Run..." in the pop up screen. Scroll to the bottom of the licence text and press "Yes" to accept the licence. Unless you have a good reason to change the default destination for the drivers to go to, accept the default location: c:\Program Files\DELL. Select the "Full Installation".

The "Dell Webcam Software" screen will be displayed, and this stage of the installation should take not more that 5 minutes.

Allow the laptop to restart (default action on "Finish"). The CD will be automatically ejected, and the machine will reboot.

Installing Dell MediaDirect(TM) 3,3
--------------------------------------------------
Insert the Drivers and Utilities CD disk in the drive. Select "Run..." in the AutoPlay pop up screen. Say

Another warning from the virus - press "Allow" again, Then "Enter" to start installation. First time round the disk got stuck again (you know when it happens, because it starts making repeatable noises). Had to eject the disk and restart the process. Not happy about it!

But eventually it all worked, and MediaDirect installed itself in a separate partition. Another reboot to confirm it's all installed and working from Windows perspective. Vista booted fine, all touch keys work OK (although I haven't really played any media with it - can't wait to put Linux on and see how it can handle the same hardware).

So, the next step is to obtain Linux - this time I'll go for Ubuntu - and install it in the free space.

Re-installing Dell XPS M1330 (Part 2)

I only need Vista for MS for a few applications used at work. Other than that, everything I need can be done by Linux.

Also, I don't want *all* applications installed by default, so I had to start from scratch. As every self-righteous know-it-all techie, I threw the Vista install disk in, to re-install, clean up the disk and repartition it in the process.

Allowing your M1330 to boot from DVD
--------------------------------------------------
First little hiccup that surprised me was that CD/DVD is after hard disk in the BIOS booting sequence.

Not a problem: reboot the system, hit F2 as soon as the first Dell screen appears and locate under "System" the "Bootable Sequence" menu item. Scroll down to it, press <Enter>. Now, with the list of available bootable devices displayed, reshuffle them to have HDD after DVD. Nice to see that booting from a USB device is available: reassuring if not surprising.

There is some help at the bottom of the BIOS setup screen. I couldn't get how to actually move the entry. If up/down arrow keys are described as Up/Down arrows (to select the line), what could U/D mean (to move the entry)? Well, trial and error proved that U/D means Shift-Up or Shift-Down arrows. Obvious !?

My preferred sequence would be:

1. CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive
2. USB Storage Device
3. Internal HDD

That's for my personal use - security consideration may dictate different approach (not a good idea to allow booting from removable media in a commercial environment).

Once you have the correct sequence, do ESCAPE, then choose Save/Exit and Enter. That will accept your new setting and continue booting the system.

During my first attempt, I have followed this with a fresh install of CentOS 5. It kind of worked, however, no sound, Ethernet or wireless were recognised. Screen required adjustments, but was fine after that. However, on reboot, although Vista was shown (as "other"), it wouldn't boot - missing MBR!

Not very worried about any of this - I never expect my first install to work. But I decided to take a step back, and rethink my approach. A bit of googling didn't go amiss. There was a very useful blog entry from a chap who tried to achieve a similar configuration, and I took his advice. More in the next part...

Re-installing Dell XPS M1330 (Part 1)

I have invested a few pounds ;-) into a gorgeous toy. I want to start playing with applications that require a dual core processor, have a bit more memory and disk. For one thing, I will be investigating virtualisation, first step: ESX from VMWare, now that we are the authorised training place for them. If anything, I need to understand exactly the Linux portion of the product (Linux for ESX administrators course will follow soon).

This is a great excuse to have a box with the spec:

System Info:
---------------------------
System: XPS M1330
BIOS version: A06 (09/03/2007)

Processor Type: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo processor
Max. Clock Speed: 2.2 GHz
Processor Cache: 4096 KB
Dual Core Present: Yes

Memory Info
---------------------------
Installed: 4096 MB
Speed: 667 MHz
Channel Mode: Dual
Technology: DDR2 SDRAM
Device Info
---------------------------
Primary Hard Drive: 200 GB HDD
Video Memory: 128 MB
Panel Type: 13.3" Wide XGA
Native Resolution: 1280 by 800

It's got all sorts of other bits and pieces, WIFI, bluetooth - of course, fingerprint recognition, camera, and a product called MediaDirect, which I haven't yet sussed out.

My first task is to reinstall it. I want a minimal install of the Vista the box came with, and Linux, which will take over most of the tasks. First quick reinstall has proven that RedHat derivatives couldn't cope. Very few devices were recognised with CentOS 5 or Fedora 6. So I decided to give the highly recommended Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy.

Well, I'm in business, incredibly impressed with Ubuntu. I am documenting every step of my attempts, and will be posting them in turn, as things progress.

The next post will cover the partitioning and preparing for Ubuntu install without losing any facilities and drivers used by Vista.

An example of using eval

When learning (or teaching) eval, the first - and very valuable - example of it is to see eval's ability to evaluate the value of the last positional parameter:

$ set a b c d

$ eval print -- \$$#

d

We use eval it to force the shell to perform a double scan, when we need to find a value of a value. First scan will evaluate the $# to the number of available parameters (in this case: 4); the second scan will check the value of it (d). This is 'bread and butter' of eval application.

Other cases of using eval are a bit more obscure, and for that reason eval is often forgotten...

Here is an example that is not 'that' obscure - and possible quite useful. A delegate wanted to rename all files in a given directory, to change the character case from lower to upper. What he devised, successfully, is as follows:

for file in *

do

mv $file $(echo $file | tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]')

done


This worked, until he found that some of the files contained 'unfriendly' characters: spaces. The script failed to cope with this.

This is where eval stepped in:

for file in *

do

eval mv '"$file"' \"$(echo "$file" | tr '[a-z]' '[A-Z]' )\"

done

In this case eval allows to insert an additional set of double quotes, which protected spaces embedded in file names.

ksh93 - test, test and then test a bit more

Since ksh93 is now [1] available for most version of UNIX (and Linux), we have been tentatively moving our courses (especially scripting) towards the new syntax. At the moment the scripting course is still based predominantly on the pre-93 versions, but we now introduce a fair amount of comparisons, 'gotchas' and demos of new capabilities and syntax.

Truth is, months later we still find new idiosyncrasies.

Here is one I found today, whilst teaching... Imagine the following example, to illustrate the need for double quotes when creating and accessing variables:

If you want to assign a value that has leading or trailing spaces or tabs, you need the quotes:

$ address=" 6 Pie Corner"

Would you expect to see the leading spaces if you didn't use the quotes when accessing the variable? Of course not! Well, in ksh93 it works! Haven't checked yet if this behaviour is driven by any particular setting or switch, but in my CentOS 5 ksh (Version M 1993-12-28 r), the following worked out of the box:

$ print -- $address

<space><space>6 Pie Corner


[1] in the original posting this said 'not' - corrected 18/10/2007

No access to ntp source?

When you install Linux on a PC, you may find that the hardware clock enforced the time. Normally, you would use the ntpd (network time protocol daemon) to synchronise the system (software) time with a selection of external sources.

However, what if you are not connected, or for some reason just don't have access to time servers (for example the ntpd port 123 is blocked)?

Well, unless you need to maintain a precise time (in which case you still need to find access to a reliable source), you can just use the good old date command and inform the hardware clock of the change.

# date --utc 101517052007.00

will update the system (software) clock and set the current time and date to: Oct 15 18:05:00 BST 2007.

The only problem is that system clock doesn't run when your machine is powered off. What does continue to run is the hardware clock. It ticks forever. External power present or not. Because on start-up the hardware clock is used, you need to flush the system date into the hardware clock, and as long as the hardware clock is accurate enough, your newly adjusted time will be persistent over reboots.

Use the hwclock tool to achieve this:

# hwclock --systohc

Do remember, though: this is 'quick and dirty'. If you require consistent and accurate time keeping, you need to synchronise the system clock with an external source...

How much do people pay for Windows software?

There is a discussion brewing in our local LUG, to do with almost philosophical aspect of software theft.
The basis for the thread lie in one of the most interesting articles on the subject I have ever read:

http://tlug.jp/articles/Windows_Is_Free

As many before, it explores moral aspects of using "second hand" software, but less usually, it attempts to analise the implication of cracked software on the industry itself and how, ironically, the effectively free windows software distorts the balance of marketing power between windows, mac OS and linux.

Keyboard layout in Solaris 10

If there is a way of setting UK keyboard during Solaris 10 installation - I don't know it! However, the /boot/solaris/bootenv.rc has a directive for that - just change US to UK.

A reboot, unfortunately is necessary...

Keyboard layout in Centos

I have been playing with Centos 5, which is the community binary for binary version of RHEL 5 (with various elements, such as text and graphics depicting or referring to Red Hat replaced with Centos, quite legally, might I add). It's an excellent alternative, as long as you don't expect a 24/7 support, or automatic updates or any of the value added stuff that a formal contract from Red Hat provides.

Anyway, the install from the DVD onto my Vaio PCG-V505BP went without any problems. Selected "Gnome Desktop", "Server" and "Server-GUI" software, and the only other customisation was disk partitioning (I like my partitions to be done the old-fashioned UNIX style).

So, as I said, the installation completed successfully, and to my best knowledge all hardware was recognised OK (still testing, so can't be totally sure). One little surprise, though - the keyboard layout was the US, not UK! Well, it is quite possible that I messed it up myself (when selecting the keyboard during installation). Either way, I went to correct it by hand, and thought I'd document it. It's quite straightforward, but a thing to remember is that two different configuration files need to be changed.

For CLI (character interface screen, accessed through CTRL-ALT-F1 - F6) you need to modify the /etc/sysconfig/keyboard. Change the KEYTABLE line to read:

KEYTABLE="uk"

This will have immediate effect, and any new CLI session will assume the correct keyboard.

For GUI screen terminals, you need to change the Xorg configuration file: /etc/X11/xorg.conf. In the "Section InputDevice", identify the line with XkbLayout and modify it to read:

Option "XkbLayout" "uk"

Unlike CLI setting, this GUI change will only take place after GUI session is restarted. I have tried the standard CTRL-ALT-Backspace, to restart Xorg server, but it didn't work! Well, not for the first time. On many systems this is disabled.

I refuse doing a full reboots lightly, so I tend to 'recycle' GUI instead. First of all, make sure you don't have any GUI-dependent users or applications before you carry out the next step (they may not like being kicked off the system without a warning).

To 'recycle' GUI means switching runlevels to 3 than to 5 again. To do that: open a CLI session (press CTRL-ALT-F1), log in as root, and switch runlevel to 3 with:

# init 3

Once the 'anaconda' message appears on the screen - you are in runlevel 3, even though you see no new prompt. Hit "Enter", and the prompt will be printed. At that point, switch back into runlevel 5 with:

# init 5

Your new keyboard layout is now available to all users.