Milian Wolff

For those of you, who use the original NVIDIA display driver and have to reinstall it with every kernel update: Here is a little bashscript for your convenience.

#!/bin/bash
sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop
sudo chvt 1
sudo sh ~/Downloads/NVIDIA-Linux-x86-*.run --ui='none' -aNq
sudo /etc/init.d/kdm start
sudo chvt 7

Save it e.g. as ~/.bin/nv_reinst.sh, make it executable (chmod +x ~/.bin/nv_reinst.sh). Then put your NVIDIA driver (only the newest version please) into ~/Downloads/ (or change the path above). Now run your script.

Attention: Save all your work, since kdm will be stopped! You’ll lose all unsaved work!

If you’re cedega games don’t play sound when another program does some audio-ouput despite using ALSA don’t forget to change the CTL and PCM devices to “default”!

I came across a very interesting paper about “GPLv2 vs GPL v3”, subbed :

The two seminal open source licenses, their roots, consequences and repercussions

Analysing, understanding and interpreting the GPLv2 and GPLv3 licenses

Must read for every Linux user in my opinion!

Download it here:

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS7621424054.html

The other day I wondered how I could potentially upgrade my motherboard’s firmware. It’s an old GA-8IRX and works quite well. Though I did come across some strange system freezes on rare occasions. Now I looked up the firmware for the board and this (or something similar) is fixed in the newest release and I wondered how I could possibly update my firmware directly from Linux with only a .exe file given.

I send an email to the Gigabyte support and apart from the whole sucking of their oh so great support process, they simply don’t care about me:

My Email

I’m a Linux user and wonder what your proposed way to upgrade my motherboard bios / firmware is.

Can I use something like FreeDos? Or is Windows (which I do not have!) necessary?

It’s a shame that you neglect Linux here. Also it’s very bad that there is nothing to be read about this issue on your website.

Their Answer (English translation, they answered in German)

Dear Mr Wolff,

thank you for your request We appreciate your interest in GIGABYTE products.

We do not support Linux on our desktop motherboards.

Sincerely

Thomas Bohlken GIGABYTE-Team

The original Answer (in German)

Sehr geehrter Herr Wolff,

vielen Dank für Ihre Anfrage. Wir freuen uns über Ihr Interesse an GIGABYTE-Produkten.

Wir supporten Linux nicht auf unseren Desktop Mainboards.

Mit freundlichem Gruß

Thomas Bohlken GIGABYTE-Team

So what the hell? They support server motherboards but don’t give a shit for Linux Users on the desktop? Way to go, I won’t buy another Gigabyte motherboard so soon. Hopefully these kind of things get fixed by those Dell-deals.

Here are some follow up responses on the -ck story:

1. Linus on CFS vs SD
2. response to Linus by Grzegor Kulewski

A very interesting interview with kernel developer Con Kolivas, who decided to quit hacking: http://apcmag.com/6735/interview_con_kolivas

I have to say that most of his points concerning the lack of desktop-user centric kernel development are very insightful and understandable. Yet it’s kind of a no-brainer that those things get updated and developed which give Linux some money or whatever. Thus the server focused features are more important and have a higher preference.

But let’s see how this might eventually change with deals like Dell has with Ubuntu spreading out.

Woha, I’d never imagined it to be so easy to create a customized Linux Live CD. Just grab the scripts from linux-live.org and follow their instructions. That way you can bind your current system on a dvd (or usb stick or whatever) and run it from everywhere!

I’ve done it with a CentOS 5 installation which was setup in a vmware. A simple scp to a real linux installation and burning the created iso to a DVD RW (via K3B) and now I got my own little live cd.

Oh no, it’s over! No more LinuxTag for at least a year. It was such a good event, I can’t tell you!

I’ve been standing at the Kubuntu-De.org booth with czessi, \sh, serenity, coastgnu, emonkey and monika and it was a pleasure working with them! It’s great to get to know all those people from irc in real life! Additionally we had support by the Amarok team (gnux, sven423 and nightrose) and especially apachelogger - a loud howl goes out to you guys (and gal nightrose)!

But I must not forget our booth neighbours: Ubuntu, linux4africa / Edubuntu and OpenOffice - thank you so much, I looking forward to share a booth place with you again sometime! A thanks in particular goes out to linux4africa for sharing their coffee machine with us - I fear I would have fallen asleep otherwise ;-) And thanks to O’Reilly for giving away free beer, there is nothing better when you have a hangover…

Hangover at the LinuxTag? Yes! It seems like we nerds and geeks now how to drink: Pretty much every night I went to a bar or something with my fellow kubunteros and amaroks, it was so much fun talking and drinking with you! The LinuxNacht social event in particular has been a very great event — we stayed until the beer was empty and the vins (including Jono Bacon) started dancing! Also a huge thanks to Trolltech for inviting us to dinner at Friday - and thanks for the cute shirt ;-)

Last but not least I want to thank hacktick and bullgard4 for planning the Ubuntu BBQ which was also a huge success for ubuntu-berlin in my eyes. Yes, we should have had more food but hey - who should we know that so many people would come?

I think it is not very suprising anymore that I got an average of 3 to 5 hours of sleep each day. Sure it was damn exhausting but that’s nothing to how much fun I had - the first six days in a row I could make geek jokes and people around me not only understood them but also laughed about them!

PS: A special thanks goes out to czessi for putting so much effort in the LinuxTag - without you my experience and that of the others would not have been that straightforward and easy!

Today started the LinuxTag for me with some construction work on the Kubuntu Community booth. It’s interesting to see how such a conference is being set up.
If you come to visit the LinuxTag drop by for a talk about Kubuntu! We are at booth 12/36.

In other news I was looking for a job and just today got a confirmation of Systematrix. I’ll start next week and the working conditions are great. Seems like my RealLife (TM) is working pretty good now, lets see how it evolves with becoming a student later this year.

And here another syntax file for Nano. This time it highlights the /etc/apt/sources.list:

## syntax highlighting for /etc/apt/sources.list
 
syntax "apt/sources.list" "sources\.list(\.old|~)?$"
# component
color brightmagenta "^deb(-src)? ((http|file|ftp):/[^ ]+|cdrom:\[[^\]]+\]/|cdrom:\[[a-zA-Z0-9\._-\(\) ]+\]/) [^ ]+ .+$"
# distribution
color brightred "^deb(-src)? ((http|file|ftp):/[^ ]+|cdrom:\[[^\]]+\]/|cdrom:\[[a-zA-Z0-9\._-\(\) ]+\]/) [^ ]+"
# URI
color brightgreen "(http|file|ftp):/[^ ]+"
# cdroms
# [^\]] does not work…
color brightgreen "cdrom:\[[a-zA-Z0-9\._-\(\) ]+\]/"
# deb / deb-src
color cyan "^deb"
color brightblue "^deb-src"
# comments
color brightyellow "#.*"