Sunday 20 December 2015

Howto upgrade Ubuntu that is no longer supported.

(very old draft - may not be complete)

Adapted from http://askubuntu.com/questions/501976/unable-to-upgrade-from-13-04-to-14-04/502029#502029

1) Edit apt sources to use "old releases" repositories.
sudo sed -i -e 's/archive.ubuntu.com\|security.ubuntu.com/old-releases.ubuntu.com/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
But your sources.list file may contain other repositories that have, for me, prevented this process from working.

a) Manually edit /etc/apt/sources.list and comment out these entries


deb-src ...
deb http://archive.canonical.com...
deb http://extras.ubuntu.com...


and comment out any other repositories that were not converted to old-releases.ubuntu.com

b) Change any country specific URLs to 'US' versions

eg. au.old-releases.ubuntu.com to old-releases.ubuntu.com

2) Update packages


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade


3) Upgrade Ubuntu version


sudo do-release-upgrade -d

Friday 1 May 2015

Howto install smokeping on lighttpd on ubuntu 15.04 linux

Smokeping is a great network and service monitoring tool. But it only configures correctly if you are using apache.

I want to run a very light web server and therefore you need to do some manual configuration to make it work.

1. Install lighttpd.

sudo apt-get install lighttpd

2. Ensure that http://localhost works. You should get page like this:




3. Install smokeping

sudo apt-get install smokeping

4. Enable Lighttpd CGI module

sudo lighttpd-enable-mod cgi

5. Reload Lighttpd

sudo /etc/init.d/lighttpd force-reload

6. Ensure that this link brings up a semi-functional page

http://localhost/cgi-bin/smokeping.cgi

Icons and graphs probably do not work.



6. Create a directory link in /var/www/ as smokeping to smokeping static page files:

sudo ln -s /usr/share/smokeping/www /var/www/smokeping
7. For some reason, lighttpd base directory is /var/www/html. This needs to be changed to /var/www (which I suspect other packages will be expecting).

Edit /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf

Change this line:
server.document-root = "/var/www/html"

to:

server.document-root = "/var/www"

8. Restart lighttpd and smokeping

sudo /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart
sudo /etc/init.d/smokeping restart

Did you get this?



Update to enable fastcgi.

I don't know what fastcgi is, but compared to cgi is is fast.

On my laptop, it is 5 times faster!

1. Copy smokeping.fcgi.dist as smokeping.fcgi

sudo cp /var/www/smokeping/smokeping.fcgi.dist /var/www/smokeping/smokeping.fcgi

2. Edit smokeping.fcgi to point to your smokeping.cgi script

exec /usr/lib/cgi-bin/smokeping.cgi /etc/smokeping/config

NOTE: my file had smokeping_cgi. This seems to be wrong and must be changed to smokeping.cgi

3. Modify /etc/lighttpd/conf-available/10-fastcgi.conf

Add this:

fastcgi.server += ( 
  "smokeping.fcgi" => ((
    "socket"   => "/var/run/lighttpd/fcgi.socket", 
    "bin-path" => "/usr/share/smokeping/www/smokeping.fcgi"
  ))
)

4. Enable Lighttpd FastCGI module

sudo lighttpd-enable-mod fastcgi

5. Reload Lighttpd

sudo /etc/init.d/lighttpd force-reload

6. This link should now work

http://localhost/smokeping/smokeping.fcgi

Sunday 8 March 2015

Asus Transformer TX201 - Android + Ubuntu 14.10 Linux

  The Good and the gooder (and some bad points)

GOODER:

2 computers in 1. Keyboard is a dual core i5 and tablet is an intel Z2560 (x86)

#Android and  8 and  and whatever else you can install on a x86 PC.

Using android  you don't need a cable.

Once you manage to boot from USB,  14.10 is trivial to install.

UPDATE: I upgraded kernel to 3.18 and then 3.19.

Fast switching between Android and Linux (or Windows). Both run at same time or you can shut down one and use other.

Chargers are small and well designed Asus plug-packs - not bricks.

Easy to open Keyboard to change HDD.

Under Linux, everything seems to work. Screen brightness is not working properly, but it does work. 

UPDATE: Thanks to Viktar Vaŭčkievič and #ArchLinux, I compiled and installed an ALS module which automatically adjusts screen backlight. See https://github.com/victorenator/als.git

Running linux in  mode.

GOOD:

11.6" screen. Could be an inch bigger based on bezel.
Tablet and keyboard have WiFi and Bluetooth.

Tablet  is possible. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=57341475&postcount=27

SD card on tablet mounts in Windows/Linux. But Ubuntu keeps opening a file manager every time I switch back from Android.

UPDATE: Fixed by Control Panel - Details - Removable Media - Tick 'Never prompt or start programs on media insertion'

Linux kernel modules to support device.

Aluminium tablet and keyboard backs.


BAD:

Matt screen might be better.

No 3G or LTE.

Can not connect 3G modem to tablet (so far).

No Android update from Asus.

No keyboard backlight nor fluorescent key labels.

When screen is open, tablet/screen hinge opens lower than base of keyboard which makes it uncomfortable as a lap-top.

A bit heavy for it's size at 1.7 kg (tablet and keyboard)

Only 2.4GHz WiFi.

UPDATE: But syslog indicates PC might support 5 GHz.

Rear camera does not work on PC.

WiFi (RTL8821) occasionally locks-up. To fix, remove module, put keyboard to sleep (Fn+f2), wake (power button) and load module. Module is rtl8821ae in my case.

UPDATE: This only seems to happen (now) when I tether to an iPhone 5s.

UPDATE: #ArchLinux also had a solution to this - too early for me to confirm that it is fixed. Does not seem to fix.