gOS 3.1 on the EEE 701? Part 2 – WiFi and other considerations

This is part of a series of posts on how to get the most out of your EEE using gOS, part one can be found here

So now that you have gOS up and running, what next…? Wireless.

As mentioned in part 1, the wireless does not work out of the box. This is easily solved thanks to the custom kernel at array.org. (the kernel is the heart of a linux operating system)

Installing the kernel

Now this section involves getting down and dirty with the command line. If this is the first time you have used linux, don’t be scared everything is provided for you and it is a copy and paste exercise. Just so you know in linux you can copy into the terminal (go to the menu in top left, accessories, terminal) by highlighting whatever you need to copy, then pressing shift and insert in the terminal window.

There are excellent instructions for the kernel installation here: array.org

If you have any problems with this part, there are plenty of forums about it, or simply post a comment here and I will try my best to reply and help out! =]

After rebooting with the new kernel you should be able to connect wirelessly. That wasn’t too hard was it?

Other customisations

Some people think that many laptops lack the functionality of macbooks for two finger scrolling. Want to enable it on the eee?

*Note* This is waaaaaay too buggy for me, some people may be able to live with it, its easy to enable/disable though

Go back to our old favourite terminal (menu, accessories, terminal) and enter the following line:

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

This will bring up a text file. You need to find the section called InputDevice, which has the identifier of “Synaptics Touchpad”. Once there, you will see some other options. Enter these two lines after the other options:

Option     “VertTwoFingerScroll”  “true”
Option     “HorizTwoFingerScroll”  “true”

Save & quit the file. You need to restart your graphics server now, do this by hitting Ctrl+Alt+Backspace (you will be returned to login screen so save anything you need to)

Now the scrolling will be enabled. If you dont like it, simply remove the lines from the file and restart again, or comment them out using the # symbol before Option on each line, which will mean they are ignored.

I also recommend disabling the login/logout sounds through menu > system preferences > sounds, they do get a bit annoying after a while!

Next time – space saving:

Tonight I will be putting some effort into reducing the footprint of the installation, as I was only left with 1.1 gb spare before installing any extra applications. I did use a technique on my Cruncheee installation that reduced the space used by around 1 third. I will post tomorrow on how to do this under gOS. Until then, enjoy wireless with gOS!

*EDIT* I am currently working on a script which will do all of this and more for you, but it is taking some time to pull together!

gOS 3.1 on the Asus EEE PC 701? Part 1 – Installing

This is part of a series of posts covering the installation and configuration procedure required to get the most out of your EEE using gOS. While the instructions are tailored towards the 701 this should apply to all later models as well.

Ever since getting my EEE in February 08 I have constantly messed around an not really settled on an operating system. I am an avid ubuntu user on my desktop and wouldn’t have it any other way, so it was only natural that I tried the first big operating system which was created for the eee in the shape of eeeXubuntu. That was a long time ago, and the operating systems that are eee-friendly have come a long way. Here is a list of some of the others I have tried along the way:

• Xandros Stock (Easy & Advanced)
• Xandros Stock Advanced using fluxbox instead of KDE
• eeeXubuntu
• eeebuntu
• ubuntu-eee
• Easy Peasy
• Cruncheee

Out of that list I was probably most satisfied with cruncheee. Pretty much everything worked straight out of the box (except for the volume keys) and running on openbox meant that it was fast and responsive. I did have some niggling problems with sound, and last week the repositories weren’t allowing me to install some sound applications because of dependancy issues with the wonderful thing that is pulse audio. So I cut my losses and went back on the distro hunt. I had thought about trying gOS when it was in its infancy, but even I (a computer scientist) felt intimidated by the amount of work it appeared to need. So now with a new release, much more user friendly set up and a promise of working out of the box, gOS was the new candidate for my loveable eee.

Simple Epson Printer Maintenance on Linux

One thing that I could never get my head around when I first moved over to linux was the lack of support for cleaning printheads etc on epson printers. In the end as I was short on time, I simply learnt the manual buttons to press on the printer to do what I needed. However, today as I am reviewing some academic papers I found it would be easier to print them, and the nozzles were messed up again, so I thought I would have one last go at it. Eventually I found the wonderful tool that is escputil

escputil will be in the repoistories for your distribution and so it should be easily installable through your package manager. It doesn’t have a nice shiny interface though, you will have to prepared to get your hands dirty at the command line, but don’t fear, its 3 easy commands.

escputil -r /dev/usblp0 -s

escputil -r /dev/usblp0 -n

escputil -r/dev/usblp0 -c

The commands will do the following; -s will report back the ink levels in your cartridges, -n will print a nozzle check sheet and -c will initiate a clean.

The section -r/dev/usblp0 (thats a zero by the way) will tell the program where to find your printer, this just tells it that it is the first usb line printer that is attached, and will be applicable for 99% of you!

So there we have it, you can now maintain your epson printer using the command line, I’ve tried and tested it and I have to say it works perfectly!

Another Light Trail Photo

An angled light trail of Leazes Bowl Roundabout in Durham

Here is another light trail photo which  was taken in Durham. Once again, Long Exposure and a tripod. This one was around 20 seconds as I was hoping to caputre the movement of cars around the rounabout. A nice thing which happens when a photo is exposed for this long you get the star effect on street lamps which is a really striking effect.

If you would like to see more of my photos: Visit my picasa page

Making Sense Of Twitter

Well this is a topic which has been covered at great length in a number of interesting ways including stop motion animations on youtube.

I think the problem is that people don’t understand what micro-blogging is as an idea. Firstly, let me say it is not for everyone. The majority of people on the internet now use facebook. That’s pretty much fact. If you do use facebook, you no doubt update your “status” from time to time. This is microblogging. It is a way of sharing with people what you are doing/feeling/wondering or whatever at that exact moment in time.

Twitter is a platform based soley around this. Each message can be no more than 140 characters which is the beauty of the system. It is a snapshot of someones actions. You broadcast it out to the world. You then have the option of “following” people. For example I follow a handful of designers and web designers who often provide inspiration. What following means is that you see updates from this person, so when ever they “tweet” you will see it.

So many people are probably saying…well thats exactly the same thing as facebook and their status updates…wrong. On twitter you don’t have to be “friends” with this person, they won’t gain access to all of your details and photos it is the simplest form of long distance communication. It provides you the opportunity to talk with networks of like minded people without the overheads of facebook or other networking sites. Think of it as a replacement for chat rooms, but with people just giving insights into their life.

Now people may think that this just sounds pointless, and that is why I mentioned that twitter is not for everyone, however many people, including myself find it a great way of communicating. Yes it will fall victim to the usual internet communication abuse. “Cant you go out and see someone, cant you text them… etc”Well, NO. I can’t jump to see a designer in San Fransisco tell them I too have to dig my car out of the snow, and I’m guessing they won’t give their mobile numbers out to me just for random chat messages. People need to move away from the whole “the internet is replacing meeting people” argument and realise what it actually does is give us the ability to reach similar minded people who are miles and miles and miles away.

I would recommend looking up twitter if you have a particular interest and you might just find that others use it too….

And if your interested: http://www.twitter.com/ajclarkson < thats me.and no. you can’t have my mobile number.

Light Trail Photography In Durham

A night shot of traffic on long exposure

I went out with the Durham University Photography Society last night to take some picutres of a light festival which is going on. While I was waiting for some other people I thought I would have a go at some light trail photography, as I have seen alot of it but never tried.

Anyway, this is how it came out. I quite like it!

HOWTO: Automatically Backup Your Linux system with rsync

So,

One of the things I was wondering about, and had never really done in linux, was backing up my files. Working as a Programmer and Web Developer, I have issues arising all of the time with bits of code that have gone missing as a result of accidents. I decided I needed a better backup system, and what better way than to make one which simply backs everything up without your input!

I decided that I would back my sourcecode files “/home/ajc/src” and my documents “/home/ajc/doc” every week. That way a loss could not be too catastrophic.

The tool which I chose to use was rsync. Many modern distributions come with this built in (I use ubuntu) and if they don’t this will certainly be in the repositories.

First things first. Set up the destination folder for your files:

#mkdir /media/vince/data_Backup in my case.

Once that is done you are ready to learn rsync.

The command which I use for my backups is as follows (it has a few extra options which I will explain)

#sudo rsync -av --progress --delete --log-file=/home/ajc/doc/$(date +%Y%m%d)_rsync.log /home/ajc/src /media/vince/data_Backup

As you can see this line of code deals with my source folder. The options are: “-a” for archive “v” means verbose so you will see detailed output “–progress” gives a progress update in terminal “–delete” will delete any items in the destination which you have removed from the source “–log-file” specifies the location for a log file to be kept. Other than that for those of you unfamiliar with bash script “$(date +%Y%m%d)” is used to inject the current date. So the filename for today would be 20080515_rsync.log

Go ahead and change the source file and destination file (last two sections of the command) and run it on your system. You will see that for a reasonable amount of data this is a quick process!

Now you know the command thats all well and good, it means that you can backup things when you want. However, we all know that this is easy to forget! So how about scheduling this task through a cron job?

You must begin by converting this command into a bash script. This is easier than it may sound. Just create the following (with your paths) in a text editor and save it to your home directory.


#! /bin/bash
sudo rsync -av --progress --delete --log-file=/home/ajc/doc/$(date +%Y%m%d)_rsync.log /home/ajc/src /media/vince/data_Backup


Next we must make the file executable

#sudo chmod +x /home/ajc/rsync-demo.sh

And then you have a file which you can click to run. However, we want automation, so here comes the cron bit

move the file to the root directory. (So that cron doesn’t ask you for a password when it runs)

#sudo mv /home/ajc/rsync-demo.sh /root/rsync-demo.sh

Then we want to open the crontab so we can schedule a job

#sudo crontab -e

here you should have several headings: m (minute of the hour) h (hour) dom (date of month) mon (month) dow (day of week) command. Now as you can see from this we have quite a wide range of choice as to when this script will be run. I chose 10pm every friday as the one I wanted. So the sequence was:

0 22 * * 5 /root/rsync-demo.sh

So 0 minutes, 22 hours, any date of the month, any month of the year, day 5 (friday) and the path to my script.

Simple. Now crontab will have opened in your default text editor so issue the command to save and exit (mines nano so Ctl + O then Ctl + X) and you will see a line confirming that the job has been added.

Done. Next time I will show you how to automate a backup to dvd!