mypapit gnu/linux blog

Ubuntu 10.04 fix for USB Drive not mounting on pc with Floppy Drive

mypapit — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:46:40 +0000

Here’s a quick fix for an Ubuntu 10.04 bug that prevents USB Drive from mounting on a PC with Floppy drive (wow, these things still exist?)

The solution is to remove the floppy drive module from linux kernel and you will be able to mount usb drive.
sudo modprobe -r floppy

Should you ever need the module again, you can issue
sudo modprobe floppy
to load the module back (alongside with the annoying bug).

Hope this will help!

p/s: To be fair, my office Dell Optiplex machine (with Pentium 4 HT 2.80GHz, 2005 issue) still has those floppy drives, although I haven’t use them ever since they assigned it to me (back in 2008).

Test Password Strength at HowSecureIsMyPassword.net

mypapit — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 12:42:02 +0000

So how secure is your password? You can test it from this website : http://howsecureismypassword.net/

Warning: Do not use your real password for testing on this website, it is not secured!

Debian Day 2010 aka Debian 17th Birthday!

mypapit — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 10:41:50 +0000

Debian has already turns 17 ! For those who wants to celebrate it (especially LoCo), you can follow the methodology as outlined in the DebianDay2010 Wiki page.

I still didn’t see Malaysia among the LoCos that organized Debian Day 2010, perhaps we can hold a meeting on that?

Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal Release Schedule has been announced!

mypapit — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 15:08:54 +0000

The next year Ubuntu Release Schedule for Natty Narwhal (11.04) has been announced! According to the schedule, Natty Narwhal Alpha will be released just after Maverick Meerkat (10.10) will be out in October!

Here are the release schedule:

4 November 2010 – Alpha 1 Released
December 2, 2010 – Alpha 2 Released
January 6, 2011 – Alpha 3 Released
February 3, 2011 – Alpha 4 Released
March 3, 2011 – Alpha 5 Released
March 31, 2011 – Beta Release
21 April 2011 – Release Candidate
28 April 2011 Final release – Ubuntu 11.04

My experience with AMD decTOP computer running on Android

mypapit — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 04:45:20 +0000

I’ve the opportunity to test out a decTOP computer at my workplace today. decTOP was originally produced as a low-cost computer to allow people from emerging countries to access the internet.

PIC) was shipped with Microsoft Windows CE and Internet Explorer 6.0, but recent release changes the BIOS behavior of decTOP, that’s allow it to boot from USB devices (flash drive and external DVD-drive).

This has led me to do few experiments with the decTOP computer. I’ve tried installing it with Ubuntu, then Windows XP, and finally Android.

and I found Android runs nicely on the decTOP without any modifications. The downside is, that currently only Android 1.6 is available for installing on x86 machine.

What happened to Ubuntu?
Apparently I ran into some difficulties in installing Ubuntu on decTOP. With LiveCD image, it is obvious that the 128MB SODIMM ram is not enough to load the desktop interface, let alone installing it. I tried the server edition and it succeeds, but the point is to run a usable Linux desktop out from decTOP machine, and I think Android do shine in this area.

Android drawback?
One drawback though, Android won’t let you save the downloaded *.apk on the remaining harddisk space, you got to use USB stick for that.

Play Dune 2 Natively on Linux with Dune Legacy

mypapit — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 15:49:04 +0000

Good news to old time gamers, now you can play Dune 2 on Linux operating system natively (without dosbox or other emulator) with Dune Legacy project. For the uninitiated, (to my best knowledge), Dune 2 is the first RTS game for DOS (by Westwood, then acquired by EA Games) that spawn several other popular games in the genre such as C&C, Red Alert, Red Alert 2, etc.

Youtube video of Dune Legacy :

The Ubuntu binary (playable under Lucid Lynx) is available from – http://www.myway.de/richieland/dunelegacy_0.96_i386.deb and http://www.myway.de/richieland/dunelegacy_0.96_amd64.deb

Naturally you would need the original data files and maps to play Dune Legacy natively on Linux. Binaries for other operating systems (Windows, Mac OS X) are also available from the Dune Legacy Project website.

How to turn Windows 7 into Ubuntu look-alike

mypapit — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 08:23:04 +0000

I found a great article from UbuntuGeek on how to turn Microsoft Windows 7 desktop to Ubuntu, with proper theme hack. The result is amazing!

You can read the rest of the article here: How To Make Windows 7 look like Ubuntu

Verifying My Blog on Ping.sg

mypapit — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:28:11 +0000

mypapit’s Profile on Ping.sg

Video: Building an energy-saving computer

mypapit — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 15:23:21 +0000

Not exactly GNU/Linux related, but it seems easy enough to build a Green PC, provided that we have all the stuff. Talking about the stuffs, where can I get those parts in Malaysia? Do please share with me…

3 ways to get Linux release information from bash terminal

mypapit — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 10:16:31 +0000

Let’s say you’ve manage to get yourself into a GNU/Linux bash terminal. What can you do in order to determine its distro and release information? Listed here are the three methods to get release information of a running GNU/Linux box.

lsb_release method
You can type “lsb_release -a”

/etc/*release and /etc/*issue method
Alternatively, you could try typing “cat /etc/*release” or “cat /etc/*issue”.

/proc/version method
If else fails, you could always try the “cat /proc/version” method to see where the kernel came from.

Hope this would help!

Mozilla Fennec 1.9.2 builds for Android

mypapit — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:15:02 +0000

Mozilla Fennec, a Gecko-based mobile browser from Mozilla is now available for Android, where you can download the latest build from the trunk from : Mozilla-Central trunk Android/.

Be careful as the code can be considered still in the alpha-stage, where memory leaks are bound to happen alongside with occasional buggy browsing experience.

It requires Android 2.0 and was only tested on Motorola Droid and Nexus One. The application must also be installed on the device’s internal memory (not on SD card).

Winbond W89C35 VID:0416 PID:0035 USB Wireless Driver

mypapit — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:06:02 +0000

Dear readers,

I’ve uploaded Windows XP driver for Winbond W89C35 as it can enable the use of Winbond USB wifi dongle (VID:0416 PID:0035) under Ubuntu Lucid Lynx.

Follow the step-by-step instruction as outlined in the Ubuntu Wiki page, in order to use the driver with ndiswrapper.

p/s: I’ve uploaded this driver because I find a lot of websites out there that offers fake Winbond W89C35 drivers.

p/s 2: Of course I would recommend the rest of the users out there to buy a more Linux-friendly USB wifi dongle, such as from TP-Link
, D-Link, Netgear or TRENDnet which I found to be very portable across operating systems.

Apple releases MacPaint source code to Computer History Museum

mypapit — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:55:07 +0000

After 26 years, Apple Inc finally decided to release MacPaint source code to the Computer History Museum. MacPaint application was a wonder back in those days because it allows users to create their own drawing with their own personal computer.

Does it reminds you of any application?

Two stitches and sick leave

mypapit — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 15:28:22 +0000

I’ve been given two stitches after underwent a minor-surgery to remove some fibroma / benign tumor tissue from my leg. Everything is ok for now, but the doctor told me that I need rest, and definitely no driving around for a couple of days. I’m very anxious to hear the results

Congratulations to piju aka 9W2PJU as our new Ubuntu Members

mypapit — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 06:58:43 +0000

I think it is still not too late to congratulate Piju @ 9W2PJU for his appointment as a new Ubuntu-Members status. Piju is an active member of Ubuntu community and has a blog that promotes ham radio application on Ubuntu operating system. He is also one of Ubuntu-Ham developer, and contributes translations effort to Squid HTTP proxy project.

Malaysia is proud of you, piju!!