Thursday, April 28, 2011

Ubuntu/natty hangs when wifi enabled

This evening I upgraded my hp2133 notebook from Ubuntu/Maverick to the new Natty. The upgrade went smoothly but now the system hangs about 2 minutes after Broadcom 4311 802.11a/b/g wifi is enabled.

Here is the bug report: BCM4311 wifi hangs hp2133 notebook after 2 minutes

Some suggestions from IRC are to try the bcmwl-kernel-source or linux-backports-modules-net-natty-generic packages.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

DreamPlug: misc info

Someone asked for more info about the hw/sw as shipped with the DreamPlug:

root@morpheus:~# uname -a
Linux morpheus 2.6.33.6 #1 PREEMPT Tue Feb 8 03:18:41 EST 2011 armv5tel GNU/Linux
root@morpheus:~# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 9.04
Release: 9.04
Codename: jaunty
root@morpheus:~# lshw
morpheus
description: Computer
width: 32 bits
*-core
description: Motherboard
physical id: 0
*-memory
description: System memory
physical id: 0
size: 501MiB
*-cpu
physical id: 1
bus info: cpu@0
*-scsi
physical id: 2
bus info: usb@1:1.1
logical name: scsi0
capabilities: emulated
*-disk:0
description: SCSI Disk
product: STORAGE DEVICE
vendor: Generic
physical id: 0.0.0
bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0
logical name: /dev/sda
version: 9910
size: 1886MiB (1977MB)
capabilities: removable
*-medium
physical id: 0
logical name: /dev/sda
size: 1886MiB (1977MB)
capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
*-volume:0
description: Windows FAT volume
vendor: mkdosfs
physical id: 1
logical name: /dev/sda1
version: FAT16
serial: 020d-9082
size: 1885MiB
capabilities: primary fat initialized
configuration: FATs=2 filesystem=fat label=dream_kr
*-volume:1
description: EXT3 volume
vendor: Linux
physical id: 2
logical name: /dev/sda2
version: 1.0
serial: cc90c161-81e2-4434-b39f-e61c8de21c6a
size: 1783MiB
capacity: 1783MiB
capabilities: primary journaled extended_attributes large_files recover ext3 ext2 initialized
configuration: created=2011-02-23 08:07:06 filesystem=ext3 label=dream_fs modified=2011-04-19 15:44:26 mounted=2011-04-19 15:44:26 state=clean
*-disk:1
description: SCSI Disk
product: STORAGE DEVICE
vendor: Generic
physical id: 0.0.1
bus info: scsi@0:0.0.1
logical name: /dev/sdb
version: 9910
capabilities: removable
*-medium
physical id: 0
logical name: /dev/sdb
*-network:0
description: Ethernet interface
physical id: 1
logical name: eth0
serial: f0:ad:4e:00:71:ec
size: 10MB/s
capacity: 1GB/s
capabilities: ethernet physical tp aui bnc mii fibre 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=mv643xx_eth driverversion=1.4 duplex=half firmware=N/A link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10MB/s
*-network:1
description: Ethernet interface
physical id: 2
logical name: eth1
serial: f0:ad:4e:00:71:ed
size: 100MB/s
capacity: 1GB/s
capabilities: ethernet physical tp aui bnc mii fibre 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=mv643xx_eth driverversion=1.4 duplex=full firmware=N/A ip=192.168.1.231 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100MB/s
*-network:2
description: Ethernet interface
physical id: 3
logical name: uap0
serial: 00:24:23:33:eb:4c
capabilities: ethernet physical
configuration: broadcast=yes ip=192.168.3.1 multicast=yes
*-network:3 DISABLED
description: Ethernet interface
physical id: 4
logical name: pan0
serial: 92:53:b4:db:b1:5b
capabilities: ethernet physical
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A link=yes multicast=yes

Monday, April 18, 2011

DreamPlug: Idles 7-8 watts

I borrowed the a Kill-A-Watt device from the local library and plugged the DreamPlug into it.

Here are my unscientific observations.

  • idle with no devices except a NIC, wifi, bluetooth: 7 to 8 watts

  • idle with no devices except a NIC: 7 to 8 watts -- that was unexpected

  • CPU at ~80% scp'ing a large file to internal disk: 9 watts

  • CPU at ~80% scp'ing a large file to external, powered eSATA disk: 9 watts

  • idle with external unpowered 320G 'laptop' USB disk: 11 watts





Powertop didn't have much in the way of suggestions that affected power.

DreamPlug: no support for nfs-kernel-server

The folks on reddit were asking about NFS performance on the DreamPlug so I installed nfs-kernel-server. Unfortunately the Ubuntu kernel shipped with the DreamPlug doesn't support NFS:


root@morpheus:~# /etc/init.d/nfs-kernel-server restart
* Stopping NFS kernel daemon [ OK ]
* Unexporting directories for NFS kernel daemon... [ OK ]
* Not starting NFS kernel daemon: no support in current kernel.
root@morpheus:~#


So if you want to use NFS (and don't want to rebuild the kernel), you'll have to use unfs3, a usermode version of NFS. It doesn't support file locking nor wildcards for hostnames in /etc/export.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

DreamPlug: motion activated webcam

The webcam tool 'motion' is pretty nice, but it needs some tweaks to the base Ubuntu/Jaunty running the DreamPlug.

Do this:

  • Enable the motion daemon. sudo emacs /etc/default/motion and set start_motion_daemon=yes

  • Allow for non-localhost access to the web interfaces. sudo emacs /etc/motion/motion.conf and change the lines to match: webcam_localhost off and control_localhost off

  • Create the default directory to hold the jpg and swf files. sudo mkdir /tmp/motion && sudo chown motion.motion /tmp/motion

  • Restart the motion daemon. sudo /etc/init.d/motion restart

  • Fire up a browser and point it to the DreamPlug's port 8080 (say http://morpheus.local:8080) and then follow the link to config then list. From there you'll probably need to set auto_brightness to on.

  • Now look at the video on port 8081 (say http://morpheus.local:8081)



After a while of it running, you don't need the browser to be on the page, take a look in /tmp/motion to find all the JPG images and SWF 'movie' files. Eventually I'll probably change the directory to live on one of the USB disks...

My PlugComputer datacenter






My PlugComputer datacenter, originally uploaded by marcn.




Wednesday, April 13, 2011

dreamplug

My Dreamplug from Globalscale Technologies finally arrived yesterday and I'm just getting around to dig into it.

Things I've noticed:


  • Shipped with Ubuntu/Jaunty preinstalled. Root password: nosoup4u


  • kernel:
    Linux ubuntu 2.6.33.6 #1 PREEMPT Tue Feb 8 03:18:41 EST
    2011 armv5tel GNU/Linux


  • Misc system info: /proc/meminfo,/proc/cpuinfo, dmesg and lsmod


  • Only port open is ssh


  • The dreamplug starts up as an open wifi access point that will route through either eth0 of the wired network or a ppp0 device. It is named DreamPlug-uAP-{last two octects of the uap0 MAC address} ie: DreamPlug-uAP-eb4c


  • /etc/rc.local runs a script in ~root/init_setup.sh(!) It sets up the wifi as an access point, configures iptables for ip masquerade/ip forwarding, enables bluetooth and plays with the LED light brightness. See: init_setup.sh


  • They didn't clean up .history -- lots of interesting stuff in there! Grab a copy before you do any commands as root. I lost the first 34 commands and curious what else they were doing. See: history.txt



  • Some commands they used and places to check for changes from default values:

    - uaputl sys_config
    - cp -rf /mnt/uaputl /usr/bin/uaputl
    - vi /sbin/wlan.sh
    - vi /etc/usbmount/usbmount.conf
    - mocp /media/usb1/EyesOnMe.mp3 (someone's favorite song, it gets played a number of times)
    - vi /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf
    - vi /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
    - cat /proc/asound/card0/codec
    - cat /proc/asound/card0/usbbus
    - cat /proc/asound/card0/usbid
    - cat /proc/asound/card0/pcm0p/info
    - vi /etc/ld.so.conf.d/libasound2.conf
    - vi /etc/java-6-openjdk/sound.properties
    - speaker-test
    - vi /etc/mke2fs.conf +5
    - vi /etc/asound.conf
    - arecord -f dat -D hw:3,0 -d 30 foo.wav
    - arecord -f dat -D hw:0 -d 30 foo.wav
    - arecord -f dat -D hw:1,0 -d 30 foo.wav
    - cat /proc/asound/cards
    - arecord -l
    - vi /etc/asound.conf
    - mocp BuzzingBee.wav
    - mv /etc/asound.conf /etc/asound1.conf
    - vi /etc/modprobe.conf
    - sudo apt-get install snd_pcm_dmix
    - vi /etc/asound1.conf
    - cp -rf /etc/asound1.conf /etc/asound.conf
    - play /home/havana.wav
    - vi /etc/udhcpd.conf


  • There are two kernel modules (mcypt.ko & sd8xxx.ko) sitting in ~root/ On how to use them (not that I've tried yet), try here on openplug.org. See: mcypt.ko and sd8xxx.ko


  • Packages installed by default: dpkg.txt


  • Things to do:
    - apt-get update && apt-get upgrade (carefully don't trash possibly changed config files)
    - install emacs (sudo apt-get install emacs)
    - change password
    - create user accounts
    - add users to sudousers (visudo)
    - install ssh keys (ssh-copy-id user@ubuntu.local)
    - change the hostname from ubuntu.local to morpheus.local (to go with my SheevaPlug named lordshiva.local) (edit /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts)
    - play with USB webcam & motion
    - setup ftp/nfs for local file sharing
    - carefully consider upgrading to more recent versions
    - look at using as a wifi client
    - try pairing bluetooth headset
    - try pairing android phone -- file transfers? remote control?
    - install cups
    - install gnump3d (needs make)
    - install munin to monitor performance (is this going to kill my
    internal sd storage?)



14-Apr 10:50am Update: DreamPlug discussion on reddit submitted by sub2k1