Last weekend, between Friday night and Saturday, my main PC (the one I use for development, photo editing, game playing, etc) locked up.  I haven’t seen a computer freeze and lock up like it did for quite some time.  Reboot and no luck.  It was having problems getting past POST and if it did get past POST, it locked up on the screen where the XP logo fades in on boot up.  Lots of potty language later, I realized this was a heck of a hardware problem.

I ended up at the local computer store and snagged a new motherboard and processor.  Of course, gotta snag some RAM since my former rig was as ancient and the old RAM was either bad or incompatible (maybe it would have been compatible, it definitely would have been a performance bottle-neck).  Dual monitors?  Need another video card for that since the old one doesn’t fit any of the fancy-pants new AGP slots.  Also had to get a new hard drive, just in case one of mine died and a new DVD drive since all my gear is IDE and I was out of IDE connections for my existing DVD drive.

I replace it all and thought I did a great job.  The problem was still there!  WTF?!

After more trouble shooting, I determine it to be a 2 part issue.  The mouse really wants to be plugged directly into the box versus the USB hub.  Also, it would appear my USB LCD display (a little 4 line, 20 character display) is toast and appears to be the source of all my hardware problems.

Oh well.

That machine was at least 4 years old and an upgrade was about due.  It runs Word really nicely (think how fast WordPerfect would be!).

I picked up an Asus Netbook for Masha (Olessia’s sister).  It is a spiffy little gadget!  She will be able to use it to connect to Skype and call in whenever she likes (it comes pre-loaded and we tested it out and works nicely).  It was so spiffy, I got one for myself.  I’ve been able to toss all sorts of stuff on it without any problems.  I’m looking forward to taking it to Russia and using it on the plane.  I’m also looking forward to toting it around to class and using it for note taking.

I've played with Suse, Red Hat, CentOS, Solaris, Knoppix, and BackTrack2.  This time I'd take a crack at Ubuntu.  I downloaded the latest version Feisty.  The install went very smoothly.  I had the wireless connection up and running in no time.  Bugger was the GPS units I had were not being detected.  A post on the 'net mentioned the same exact problem, yet the previous version worked.  Ah ha!  I downloaded the previous version Edgy and its install wasn't as smooth, but still a good experience (the wireless setup isn't as hands off as it is in Feisty). 

The trick to get an Earthmate (LT-20) GPS working in Edgy was to compile GPSD v2.34.  You can't "apt-get install gpsd" here since you will get v2.33 which when mated with the LT-20 gps unit and Kismet, does not fully work.  Getting gpsd 2.34 to compile was a bit of a trick.  The install file suggests using autogen.sh to build the files.  That didn't work out too great for me and I opted for ./configure and then make.  Here you have to stay on your toes and catch the errors and apt-get the necessary dev packages.  When you do this right, gpsd will compile.  Once compiled, do make install and life will be good.  

Now I've got a dual boot XP and Ubuntu setup.  Ubuntu actually runs pretty darn nice.  I can get on the 'net.  I've already pimped Firefox with the extensions I need.  Kismet + gpsd + (gpsdrive || jigle) works (with speech too, although a bit too annoying for my taste to leave enabled).  Ubuntu has some nice office tools which I have yet to play with.  All in all, I'm going to give Ubuntu a try and will see if I can wean myself off of Windows.  

I wasn't in the mood to swap out Windows XP for a Linux install on the notebook.  There is Windows application development I use it for.  A Linux live boot CD would be perfect.  A USB thumb drive would probably be tons better, but the BIOS on the ze5185 doesn't see the thumb drive as something bootable (I tried Zip and HDD boot flavors on the thumb drive with no luck).  I like the thumb drive approach because you can have a read/write system.  Being stuck with the CD leaves you having to reset your changes you made every time you boot.  A work around here is to put the changes on the thumb drive and write a script to copy them where they need to go.  And probably a better solution is to let the live CD create a partition file on the hard disk, although I have yet to try this. 

Next it was a matter of selecting the live CD.  There's a lot to pick from out there.  Knoppix has been around for quite some time now and I know it Just Works™.   I've played with Knoppix S-T-D.  It is very slick and boots up pretty darn quick. I opted not to go with it because I wasn't able to get any of my wireless adapters to work nor any of my GPS units.  I came across the LiveCD List.  From here I poked around and discovered Backtrack2.  It supported one of the wireless cards I had so I gave it a whirl.  It worked great with the Broadcom card, but there were still issues.  

My immediate problem was the notebook would shut down with Backtrack2.  After watching it, it appeared to be an over heat problem.  The fans worked.  Granted, I had taken apart this notebook 3 times now and have come up with 10 extra screws that didn't find homes.  Windows XP had been stable and running a software temperature monitor, the notebook under XP ran just fine.  Backtrack2 uses the v2.6 Linux kernel and has support for ACPI which monitors the health of the hardware.  I found if I disabled this on boot, the notebook no longer shut down.  When you pop the CD in and boot up, it pauses at a prompt for boot options.  Here's what I plug in (nodhcp tells it to ignore finding an IP address on boot):

bt acpi=off nodhcp 

The notebook boots up and then prompts for a user name and password (root and toor).  Hopping into KDE is just a matter of issuing startx, which works on my notebook, but the screen isn't quite right.  Enter in xconf and then startx and life is good.  

Running Kismet is simply a matter of finding it in the menu.  It simply works, which is awesome.  No driver fiddling for me. 

Next, I wanted to get GPS working.  I have 3 GPS units.  One is from Rand McNally's "1997 Street Finder" (I think that was the title).  Another more recent one was from DeLorme's "2004 Street Atlas" (I think).  And lastly, I have Microsoft's "2005 Street & Trips" and the GPS unit it came with (it is a Pharos GPS-360).  I did a lot of reading on the 'net and people seem to have gotten the Pharos to work.  It wouldn't under Backtrack2.  After a lot of frustration, I popped in Knoppix v5 CD and v5.1 DVD versions and it worked under both of those.  Crap, it's a driver problem.  After a lot more frustration, I had plugged in my 1997 vintage GPS in while in Backtrack2.  I had GPSD running, which is what Kismet uses to get its GPS data.  I stared at the screen and after 30 seconds or so, GPSD decided to try a different baud rate.  It keeps trying and a minute or so later, it latched onto the GPS!  I tried it with the DeLorme unit and it worked there too.  I haven't been able to get it to work with the Pharos one (yet).  The GPS problems appear to be a combination of getting USB to work and having the right drivers and Linux kernel.  

UPDATE:  Backtrack2 and GPSD can talk to the Pharos GPS unit.  Every time I tried before, GPSD would freak out and halt.  

Once you get GPSD to work (and in theory,  gpsdrive), start it up and then start Kismet.  If life is good, the latitude and longitude will be displayed in Kismet.  If not, check kismet.conf (/etc/kismet/kismet.conf in Backtrack2) and make sure GPS is enabled (from the looks of it, Kismet, by default in Backtrack2, is configured for GPS).  

Next up was getting the thumb drive to work.  USB would see it.  But Backtrack2 doesn't appear to properly mount it until KDE sees it.  So I hold off on plugging in the drive until after I'm in KDE.  I plug it in, click OK, and then /mnt/sda1_removable works.  From here, I run my scripts to start GPSD, gpsdrive, and Kismet.  

I took it out the past few days and it works pretty good.  The DeLorme unit, I think, is causing Kismet to fail to report the right GPS coordinates.  Kismet keeps saying it lost connection with the GPS unit.  I think this is because this unit is not feeding proper NMEA sentences back.  I'll take the Pharos for a spin.  I think it will do a bit better.  

Then the other day it hit me: Persuade the phone to use a dialup connection. Here’s how to do it.

1. You’ll need a phone which can do this. A Nokia 6600 works. I would think other phones can do this too, but maybe not.

2. You’ll need a dialup internet plan. There’s some pretty cheap ones out there. I get mine from the university I go to.

3. Go to Settings -> Connections -> Access Points. We want to add a new access point.

4. Give it a name and specify the data bearer as “data call.” Then enter the dialup number and user name and password. For authentication, I left it as “normal.”

5. When you use your favorite app, tell it to use your new access point you setup.

There are some drawbacks to doing this like it uses your phone connection and ties up your line. But the advantage is you have full ‘net access and all the ports are open.

By using this technique, I was able to use Putty, AgileMessenger, and several J2ME apps which hadn’t worked with the simple t-zones plan.

I’ve picked up some Microsoft acedemic software. Its dirt cheap. But yeah, if you can’t use it or install it, its useless and very tough to get rid of.

What to do? It was almost 8am on Thursday morning and I decided I was
going to replace the power supply before I head off to work. How did I
know it was the power supply? Well, 2 weeks before hand there was the
stench of burnt electronics coming from the general area where
Pathfinder sits at. I had first suspected it was Endeavour, my Pentium
100Mhz Linux box, but oddly enough it was running fine. After about 5
minutes, I rounded up a flakey (due to motherboard/cache) AMD K6-2
300Mhz machine. I pulled its power supply out and 10 minutes later had
it installed in Pathfinder. Flipped the switch and Pathfinder resumed
where it left off at.

An interesting note about Pathfinder: It is an Intel 233Mhz machine
which isn’t anything special. But its running in the same chassis as my
first computer – an AMD 386DX 40Mhz machine (back then, 486SX 25Mhz
machines were “da bomb”). And from this first chassis I had upgraded to
a 486DX 40Mhz machine and then later to the Intel 233Mhz. The 3.5″
floppy drive is the original floppy drive that came with the 386 machine
and I think it still works (haven’t really had a need to use floppies
lately). This 233Mhz machine has a video tuner card installed and makes
one of the web cams possible.

In other news, I had my last calculus 1 quiz last night. I’m pretty
sure I passed it. I would LOVE to have gotten a perfect score on it.
But I had gotten stuck on a step in one of the problems. I think I
worked around it successfully, but I’m not sure.

They completed their first flight on Thursday, September
30th. And today they completed the required second flight within the
required two weeks.

Also note, today is the 47th anniversary of the
Soviet Union’s launching of Sputnik.

align=”left” width=”240″ height=”179″ />Burt Rutan is one
of the people I consider a hero and would really like to meet. He has
designed and built some amazing aircraft. What’s really amazing is all
his aircraft have been sub-sonic. SpaceShipOne is his first creation
which goes faster than Mach 1. In fact, it reaches Mach 3+ going
straight up! SpaceShipOne also is designed as simple as possible. It’s
flight controls are not the fancy fly-by-wire but the simple cable and
pulley type. The last aircraft to fly faster than the speed of sound
with a cable and pulley setup is said to be the Bell X-1 piloted by
Chuck Yeager. This, to me, means there’s some serious engineering going
on to allow SpaceShipOne to fly with this configuration. Also pretty
neat is the feather system Rutan designed into SpaceShipOne. It allows
the aircraft (or is it a space craft?) to tumble back into the
atmosphere without much stress on the airframe or pilot input (its been
said the pilot can sit back and not touch a thing and it’ll re-enter the
atmosphere on its own). To me, that’s engineering and creativity at work.

Wow!