Just the facts, ma'am

These are the distros I have tried and have been unable to get to run on the Fujitsu Lifebook P1630. They all universally display the same behaviour: Regular boot up until X starts, at which the screen cycles through three shades of grey followed by red, green, and blue. All Linux:
* OpenSuSE 11.1
* ubuntu 8.10
* PCLinuxOS 2009
* Mepis 8 (does work but only at 800x600)
Reinstalling the Windows OS does work, so the machine is not defective.

But it does make one start wondering... Conspiracy et al. Is there a chip in the P1630 that prevents you from running anything except Microsoft?

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me...

Why does it have to be so hard?

It's been a while since my last post. Very busy: work, taxes, summer planning, and ...

Trying to get SuSE 11.1 to work on a Fujitsu P1630 Lifebook.

Or any other distro, for that matter.

OpenSuSE 11.1 works just fine on the two years-old Fujitsu P1610 Lifebook. But the P1610 is getting a bit long in the tooth, so I thought I'd get the latest and greatest.

The machine is not defective, at least not as designed. It runs the M$ native installation just fine.

But I don't want M$. I want KDE-based Linux.

The P1630 comes with an Intel Mobile GM45 Express Chipset and a 1280x768 display. However, I have not been able to get the video to work except in Failsafe mode, and even then rather tenuously.

The basic issue is that the X system configurator, ''sax2'' hangs, at a point at which the screen repeatedly cycles through:
* Black
* 33% Grey
* 67% Grey
* White
* Red
* Green
* Blue

* I Try Mepis OS, it boots, but only offers 800x600 resolution
* I try PClinuxOS, it does the same as SuSE: flashing screen cycling from black through grey and white to RGB
* I download the latest SuSE 11.1 with KDE 4.1 ISO. No joy.

And of course, in the meantime a host of other issues with CD recorders and other matters.

I really love my P1610. I get a couple of hours of battery life and have two batteries, so plenty for a TransAtlantic. It fits on an airline tray and has 80GB of disk. So it seemed a no brainer to upgrade to the P1630.

But no, they had to go and fix something that wasn't broken...

If it ain't broke DON'T FIX IT!

KDE 4.1 has a new "feature", a search engine called Strigi. It depends on a service called nepomukservices. The latter consumes about 95% of your CPU time. And there is nowhere that I can find any way to invoke strigi and make any use of it.

So, aphoristically, I am giving away 95% of my computing power to accomplish nothing.

OK, so let's turn it off. Fire up YaST and go to System > System Services (Runlevel). Sorry, no entries for either strigi or nepomukservices or anything like that.

OK, so then let's uninstall it. Fire up yast2 sw_single and find strigi. OK, done, change the checkbox to an X and proceed.

Not-so-fasto. It wants now to also uninstall all of KDE4 and plasma!!

Good grief!

OK, fuggedaboutit, locate strigi and rename the executables to trash_strigi, and then do the same for nepomukservices.

Done.

Look guys, I know you want to be creative, but please try to let something be optional until proven worthy and popular. The idea of uninstalling all of KDE 4 and plasma just to get rid of one useless search engine is ridiculous.

VNC - Virtual Network Computing

I have spent a number of hours over the last couple of weeks trying to work out Virtual Network Computing between two machines on my WiFi LAN. This post summarizes what I have found on my own, compared to what Google has found for me.

The VNC protocol is basic Linux and independent of the GUI software.

There are two ways of connecting: either a Remote Frame Buffer protocol that sends the desktop of the server or the original VNC protocol that sends the contents of an X-session established remotely on the server. While a person at the server display can see what is happening in an RFB session, the workings of the X-session are invisible.

http://www.realvnc.com/support/getting-started.html provides a good synopsis of the basic commands, but there were some glitches.

http://www.enterprisenetworkingplanet.com/netos/article.php/1470341 provides another good tutorial.

vncserver/vncviewer
This is the original, now TightVNC, protocol that comes with the distribution. Per the ''man'' page, vncserver is a wrapper script to launch an X server for VNC. Running it brings up av Xvnc session that only shows a shell terminal on the server machine.

krfb/krdc
This is a remote frame buffer GUI that comes with SuSE. krfb sets up a listening session on the server. krdc connects. krdc offers two types of connection: vnc and rdp. The former brings up the server's display. The latter is for remote control of Windows machines.

I have installed SuSE 11.1 (the latest) on both machines.

Review and Comments
vncserver/vncviewer

• I can connect to "m90" server, but only get an X session
• vncviewer will only connect to vncserver. It does not connect to a remote frame buffer server (e.g.,krfb)

krfb/krdc

• I can connect to m90 server but the presented screen is all patchy and unusable. I have tried all three "Connection Speed"s. The lower speeds end up with a pixellated display, but otherwise the results are the same: the mouse movements are halting and there are numerous different-sized different-colored rectangular patches over any text, and font colors vary. The results are essentially the same in both directions, although the problems while using my "p1610" as a server are not as pronounced as when using m90. This suggests the problem is the server speed. The patchiness is primarily on text. Graphics render fine.

http://192.168.5.2:5800

• |No response. Did various researches, opened firewall ports 5800:5802 and 5900:5902 on both machines. Just no joy. The result is the same in both Firefox and Konqueror. My guess is that this will only render an X session, which is not very useful (I can do as well with ''ssh'' if all it offers is a shell...

realvnc
http://realvnc.com/ offers a free version for download, which I have done. But it is just the usual vncserver/viewer X-session pair.|

I had earlier succeeded in getting a session with the machine upstairs {{{m90.Pilgrim.net, 192.168.5.2}}} using both {{{vncviewer}}} and the HTTP interface http://m90:5801/ on {{{konqueror}}}.

Remaining X-server Issues
The session is rendered as an X-session, not a desktop session, if vncserver is running. Which client is being used ((vncclient or krdc does not matter. You must have krfb up on the server to see the desktop.

With vncserver I do not know how to:

• Have the client's actions appear on the screen of the X server. All this can carry on in X and there is no indication on the screen. krdc actions do appear.
• See the existing server desktop. I only see the Xshell that comes up when I connect and any subsequent applications I open from the CLI in the shell. KDE Desktop, icons, etc. are all invisible.I can invoke KDE from the X-session shell prompt, but this then returns the pixellation and patchiness issues cited above, and again are invisible on the server display.
  
• Resize the windows in the viewer. I can bring up the menu and select resize but there is still no response. By contrast, krdc does a nice job of resizing the display to fit the client screen.
  
• Alt-Tab between the child windows. Again the Menu lets you park an icon manager and select windows there, but the Alt-Tab kind of function eludes me.
• Allow access to external addresses. This is just a matter of working through the firewall settings and the results in {{{dmesg}}} but at present we haven't gotten there.
• Allow access on my own machine. I can access M90 but not this machine and there are no messages in {{{dmesg}}} indicating the problem.

Tips

• Ensure your network does not have any IP conflicts. Each machine needs a unique IPA. //Duhhh//...
• Alt-F8 brings up the VNC viewer menu.
• Try the {{{-shared}}} option. When you make a connection to a VNC server, all other existing connections to that server are normally closed.
• You can run the viewer as either //user// or {{{root}}}. The permissions on the remote ("server") machine determine what you can do.
• You need to open a number of ports in the firewall to allow access here: TCP 5800, TCP 5900 as a minimum.
  

Checklist
Here is a checklist of access controls that can prevent successfull VNC sessions:
(With multitudinous thanks to
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/vnc-connection-refused-435593/)
1. Make sure your router firewall allows VNC. Specifically, it should open the ports 5800, 5900. If your VNC display is on :1, you should also open ports 5801 & 5901. Similarly, if your display is on port :2, you should open 5802 & 5902, and so on.
In Guarddog, create these in the Advanced tab and enable Local to serve to to Pilgrim.net and vice versa (and the Internet if desired) in the Local section.

2. Make sure your Xwindows has access opened on those displays. To find out, do:
> xauth list
This results in:
P1610:~ # xauth list
P1610/unix:0 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 5e7c1e8f677366d772374530258c514e
M90.Pilgrim.net:1 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 5b6a01831f3e58b77218990dd62cdc1b
P1610/unix:1 MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 5b6a01831f3e58b77218990dd62cdc1b
3. To find the external IP address of your linux machine, point your webbrowser (on the linux machine) to http://myipaddress.com/
4. Finally, note that you can point your web browser (on your linux machine) to the following website to check if your VNC server is accessible from the external world: http://www.gotomyvnc.com
5. And as usual after messing about with a firewall, go to
https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2
to make sure you are not showing anything you don't want to show.

Trucking Along... VMWare

I've slain a bunch of dragons in the past few weeks. Quite happy with that.

But many others evade me.

One is VMWare's USB 2.0 support, apparently not. The menu states that WorkStation 5.0 series do not support USB 2.0, but I am on WS 6.5.1. Going to tools offers no solution for upgrading, and Googling has not helped so far...

As a result I cannot connect the Nokia E90 nor the Olympus DS-61 to Windows 2000 running on VMWare WS 6.5.1 on Linux SuSE 11.1.

I'm sure we shall figure it out eventually.

The Cat Sat on the Hat - SuSE 11.1 & KDE 4.x

Well, not on the hat. But he did sit on the keyboard. I haven't a clue what magic combination of keys he triggered, but whatever, it was a doozy. The video settings were trashed, as was OpenOffice and several other things. So after numerous attempts to "upgrade", restart, re-this, re-that, I bit the bullet, reformatted the partition and started the installation from scratch.

This time it has installed KDE 4.1.9 and OpenOffice 3.0.1. Both, especially the former, are a delight.

KDE 4.1.9 has the touted "Folder View" working nicely. It took me a while to Google and figure out how to show the desktop icons. The key is to right click on the desktop, choose Desktop Settings and then examine the options in the Desktop Activity > Type options. (Yes, I know, this is not intuitive). The first two choices are Default Desktop and Desktop without ... (there is more but it disappears off the screen). The third is Folder View. Apply this and all your icons reappear.

Once past all that Plasma is a delight:

* Run your cursor to the upper left hand corner of the screen and you get a tiled miniaturization of all open windows showing the actual contents of each, making choosing the one you want much easier than using icon recognition (what is that funny little triangle with the exclamation point...). You just look at the window and know.

* Are you wondering what's underneath your current window? Just click the title bar at the top and hold or move the window. It turns partly transparent, showing whatever is underneath.

Also, delighted to see Input Actions (aka KHotKeys) have returned. I've really missed those.

So, much improved over earlier versions. I still haven't found how to turn back on the button for recent documents on the Start menu. They have Recently installed, but no Recent Documents. But I'm sure I'll eventually figure it out, prolly by adding an icon...

As for OpenOffice.org 3.0.1, it just generally seems much more complete, smooth, and professional. I'm mostly a Calc guy so have focused there. They have fixed some glitches and given it a new, more professional look.

Initial installation resulted in v. 3.0.0.9, but having read about 3.0.1 I updated the repositories and "upgraded" the components. This went alright, except that there were a number of conflicts between 3.0.0.9 and 3.0.1 components, so I finally just totally uninstalled 3.0.0.9 and clicked one box - OpenOffice.org - in YaST to install 3.0.1. This went flawlessly, but only installed Calc and Math. So I returned and only clicked four boxes: Writer, Impress, Draw, QuickStart. Again, no problems.

So I figure all those hard working folks have figured out the dependencies, I'll just let them decide what I need to install, instead of crawling through pages and pages of options myself.

Minimalism is a good thing.

So it seems that as, cited by an earlier commenter, the problems were with KDE and other apps and not with SuSE itself. OTOH, the packagers need to temper their desire to get the latest and greatest and not knowingly package buggy software in a release, at least not without some warning.

But, whatevah, I'm a much happier camper now.

SuSE 11.1 - too little, too soon

I'm an engineer, so I like to read the instructions and do my homework before I come to a conclusion. So I have given SuSE 11.1 due diligence. I have spent at least a day with each of the problem areas, some with success, others without. As a result I have come to the following conclusion:

• SuSE 11.1 is very pretty. The Plasma desktop is beautiful.
• SuSE 11.1 is a very pretty bimbo. There are a lot of things that just don't work.

As my father said to my sister, "pretty is as pretty does." The SuSE people have obviously spent a lot of time on facepaint, but under that pretty face is a very disfunctional brain. Let me count the ways:

• Bluetooth does not work on KDE. http://en.opensuse.org/Bluetooth gives the summary. http://forums.opensuse.org/hardware/402244-bluetooth-solution-opensuse-11-1-a.html gives the workaround as installing the gnome bluetooth package, but it only works if you have Gnome as the desktop. On KDE bluetooth does not even appear in YaST, although hcitool does show it exists and it can find remote and local devices. You just cannot assign a password to the local device, so you cannot connect. As a result there is a host of other things that do not work, including:
  • obexfs
  • syncml
  • Bluetooth modem
• GIMP 2.6.2 scanner support does not work. xscanimage cannot find the scanner even though skanlite and scanimage find the device. We can live with this since skanlite can save a scan to a file that we can then open in GIMP.
• Audio does not work. We spent hours farkling this.There is a troubleshooting guide for SuSE 11.1 system at http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Intel-HDA_sound_problems but I have been through this in detail without success.
• File previews in konqueror do not work. The new Plasma interface lets you select or deselect a file by clicking on the icon, but despite settings in Personal Settings you do not get the popup preview with size, date, ownership data.
• The system will not shut down except by brute force power-off. See http://forum.soft32.com/linux/SuSE-11-Novell-bring-windows-98-code-Linux-ftopict474479.html
• khotkeys does not work. As a result I have lost all my quick inputs of the complex passwords we have to use.
• Beagle is a dog. Duhhh. But it really is. It spends hours thrashing about, but when you ask it something it plays dumb. So why am I wasting all that disk space? So I nuked it.
• The SuSE firewall is a dog. No visible means of configuration unless you have memorized iptables. Thanks be to God for guarddog:
• http://www.simonzone.com/software/guarddog/
  
• There is no support for mplayer, even though this is the dominant open source media player. I had to revert to learning svn (a step beyond CVS and full of flamers) to get it to work, and the kplayer GUI still doesn't work.
• The default SeaMonkey email system is definitely a work in progress. I went with it for a week and then trashed it to return to Thunderbird.

SO: pretty well disappointed.

• Note that:
  • These conclusions are deliberate. I spent easily a full eight hour day on each of these problems
  • I am a real SuSE fan. I prefer the KDE interface as being bright and cheerful and crisp. Everyone else wants fat dull Gnome. I hate it.
  • I'm a certified engineer and geek, so quite adept, and moreso than most, at farkling these problems.
  • And, most importantly, all these things worked just fine on SuSE 10.2. So the operative phrase is: If it ain't broke don't fix it!! Good grief...
    

My opinion is that the community at large, and Novell/OpenSuSE in particular, would be better off adhering less rigidly to a six-month release cycle and more rigidly to making sure that very much everything works before making a release. Normal people do not reformat their disks and install a new operating system every six months. 'Way too much work. This evolution has easily cost me two months, which thankfully I had available. I'm not going to do that every six months. And releasing buggy software just gives the community a bad name. So take at least a little more time and ensure that it WORKS before releasing it. Especially do not release stuff that the community has already identified as being dysfunctional, like bluetooth on KDE4.

So, despite being a SuSE fan from 10.2 onward, I shall catch my breath, and then try to figure out how to get Fedora or something else to give me KDE. And then, maybe, very maybe, come back to try SuSE 11.2 or 11.3 or ... But again, shall do due diligence first.