Posts Tagged ‘power’

How to run SSH server Mac OS X and set it to auto boot on Mac Book system start

Monday, February 5th, 2024

mac os X

How to run SSH Server on Mac OS X to administrate remotely your MAC OS to access remote MacBook Air or Mac OS 

Linux / UNIX users know it is pretty easy to run OpenSSH server on old Linux SystemV releases

it is done with cmd:

# /etc/init.d/sshd start


On newer Linux distros where systemd is the standard it is done wtih:

# systemctl start ssh.service

To enable ssh service on boot on systemd distros

# systemctl enable ssh.service


To enable SSH access on Mac OS X this is done wtih a simple command

To check the status of SSH server being on or OFF, either connect with netcat to TCP port 22, which is usually installed by default on most MAC OS-es or run:

# systemsetup -getremotelogin

To start and enable SSH service on Mac OS X run:

# systemsetup -setremotelogin on 


If you later need to turn off the SSH service

# systemsetup -setremotelogin off

Actually systemsetup command can do pretty much on MAC OS X and it is worthy to take a look at it, if you're running a MAC PC or Mac Book laptop.

systemsetup can set the current date, change time server host, set computer name (hostname) and much more.

sh-3.2# systemsetup -help

systemsetup Help Information
————————————-
Usage: systemsetup -getdate
        Display current date.

Usage: systemsetup -setdate <mm:dd:yy>
        Set current date to <mm:dd:yy>.

Usage: systemsetup -gettime
        Display current time.

Usage: systemsetup -settime <hh:mm:ss>
        Set current time to <hh:mm:ss>.

Usage: systemsetup -gettimezone
        Display current time zone.

Usage: systemsetup -settimezone <timezone>
        Set current time zone to <timezone>. Use "-listtimezones" to list time zones.

Usage: systemsetup -listtimezones
        List time zones supported by this machine.

Usage: systemsetup -getusingnetworktime
        Display whether network time is on or off.

Usage: systemsetup -setusingnetworktime <on off>
        Set using network time to either <on> or <off>.

Usage: systemsetup -getnetworktimeserver
        Display network time server.

Usage: systemsetup -setnetworktimeserver <timeserver>
        Set network time server to <timeserver>.

Usage: systemsetup -getsleep
        Display amount of idle time until computer, display and hard disk sleep.

Usage: systemsetup -setsleep <minutes>
        Set amount of idle time until computer, display and hard disk sleep to <minutes>.
        Specify "Never" or "Off" for never.

Usage: systemsetup -getcomputersleep
        Display amount of idle time until computer sleeps.

Usage: systemsetup -setcomputersleep <minutes>
        Set amount of idle time until compputer sleeps to <minutes>.
        Specify "Never" or "Off" for never.

Usage: systemsetup -getdisplaysleep
        Display amount of idle time until display sleeps.

Usage: systemsetup -setdisplaysleep <minutes>
        Set amount of idle time until display sleeps to <minutes>.
        Specify "Never" or "Off" for never.

Usage: systemsetup -getharddisksleep
        Display amount of idle time until hard disk sleeps.

Usage: systemsetup -setharddisksleep <minutes>
        Set amount of idle time until hard disk sleeps to <minutes>.
        Specify "Never" or "Off" for never.

Usage: systemsetup -getwakeonmodem
        Display whether wake on modem is on or off.

Usage: systemsetup -setwakeonmodem <on off>
        Set wake on modem to either <on> or <off>.

Usage: systemsetup -getwakeonnetworkaccess
        Display whether wake on network access is on or off.

Usage: systemsetup -setwakeonnetworkaccess <on off>
        Set wake on network access to either <on> or <off>.

Usage: systemsetup -getrestartpowerfailure
        Display whether restart on power failure is on or off.

Usage: systemsetup -setrestartpowerfailure <on off>
        Set restart on power failure to either <on> or <off>.

Usage: systemsetup -getrestartfreeze
        Display whether restart on freeze is on or off.

Usage: systemsetup -setrestartfreeze <on off>
        Set restart on freeze to either <on> or <off>.

Usage: systemsetup -getallowpowerbuttontosleepcomputer
        Display whether the power button is able to sleep the computer.

Usage: systemsetup -setallowpowerbuttontosleepcomputer <on off>
        Enable or disable whether the power button can sleep the computer.

Usage: systemsetup -getremotelogin
        Display whether remote login is on or off.

Usage: systemsetup -setremotelogin <on off>
        Set remote login to either <on> or <off>. Use "systemsetup -f -setremotelogin off" to suppress prompting when turning remote login off.

Usage: systemsetup -getremoteappleevents
        Display whether remote apple events are on or off.

Usage: systemsetup -setremoteappleevents <on off>
        Set remote apple events to either <on> or <off>.

Usage: systemsetup -getcomputername
        Display computer name.

Usage: systemsetup -setcomputername <computername>
        Set computer name to <computername>.

Usage: systemsetup -getlocalsubnetname
        Display local subnet name.

Usage: systemsetup -setlocalsubnetname <name>
        Set local subnet name to <name>.

Usage: systemsetup -getstartupdisk
        Display current startup disk.

Usage: systemsetup -setstartupdisk <disk>
        Set current startup disk to <disk>.

Usage: systemsetup -liststartupdisks
        List startup disks on this machine.

Usage: systemsetup -getwaitforstartupafterpowerfailure
        Get the number of seconds after which the computer will start up after a power failure.

Usage: systemsetup -setwaitforstartupafterpowerfailure <seconds>
        Set the number of seconds after which the computer will start up after a power failure. The <seconds> value must be a multiple of 30 seconds.

Usage: systemsetup -getdisablekeyboardwhenenclosurelockisengaged
        Get whether or not the keyboard should be disabled when the X Serve enclosure lock is engaged.

Usage: systemsetup -setdisablekeyboardwhenenclosurelockisengaged <yes no>
        Set whether or not the keyboard should be disabled when the X Serve enclosure lock is engaged.

Usage: systemsetup -version
        Display version of systemsetup tool.

Usage: systemsetup -help
        Display help.

Usage: systemsetup -printCommands
        Display commands.

 

Enabling SSH in Mac OS X computers can be done also from Graphical interface for the lazy ones.

enable-ssh-mac-remote-login-from-mac-OS-X-gui

VIM Project (VI Improvied IDE Editor extension to facilitate web development with vi enhanced editor

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

I use VIM as an editor of choice for many years already.
Yet it's until recently I use it for a PHP ZF (Zend Framework) web development.

Few days ago I've blogged How to configure vimrc for a php syntax highlightning (A Nicely pre-configured vimrc to imrpove the daily text editing experience

This enhancements significantly improves the overall PHP code editing with VIM. However I felt something is yet missing because I didn't have the power and functunality of a complete IDE like for instance The Eclipse IDE

I was pretty sure that VIM has to have a way to be used in a similar fashion to a fully functional IDE and looked around the net to find for any VIM plugins that will add vim an IDE like coding interface.

I then come accross a vim plugin called VIM Prokject : Organize/Navigate projects of files (like IDE/buffer explorer)

The latest VIM Project as of time of writting is 1.4.1 and I've mirrored it here

The installation of the VIM Project VIM extension is pretty straight forward to install it and start using it on your PC issue commands:

1. Install the project VIM add-on

debian:~$ wget https://www.pc-freak.net/files/project-1.4.1.tar.gz
debian:~$ mv project-1.4.1.tar.gz ~/.vim/
debian:~$ cd ~/.vim/
debian:~$ tar -zxvvf project-1.4.1.tar.gz

2. Load the plugin

Launch your vim editor and type : Project(without the space between : and P)
You will further see a screen like:

vim project entry screen

3. You will have to press C within the Project window to load a new project

Then you will have to type a directory to use to load a project sources files from:

vim project enter file source directory screen

You will be prompted with to type a project name like in the screenshot below:

vim project load test project

4. Next you will have to type a CD (Current Dir) parameter
To see more about the CD parameter consult vim project documentation by typing in main vim pane :help project

The appearing screen will be something like:

vim project extension cd parameter screen

5. Thereafter you will have to type a file filter

File filter is necessary and will instruct the vim project plugin to load all files with the specified extension within vim project pane window

You will experience a screen like:


vim project plugin file filter screen

Following will be a short interval in which all specified files by the filter type will get loaded in VIM project pane and your Zend Framework, PHP or any other source files will be listed in a directory tree structure like in the picture shown below:

vim project successful loaded project screen

6. Saving loaded project hierarchy state

In order to save a state of a loaded project within the VIM project window pane you will have to type in vim, let's say:

:saveas .projects/someproject

Later on to load back the saved project state you will have to type in vim :r .projects/someproject

You will now have almost fully functional development IDE on top of your simple vim text editor.

You can navigate within the Project files loaded with the Project extension pane easily and select a file you would like to open up, whenever a source file is opened and you work on it to switch in between the Project file listing pane and the opened source code file you will have to type twice CTRL+w or in vim language C-w

To even further sophisticate your web development in PHP with vim you can add within your ~/.vimrc file the following two lines:

" run file with PHP CLI (CTRL-M)
:autocmd FileType php noremap <C-M> :w!<CR>:!/usr/bin/php %<CR>
" PHP parser check (CTRL-L)
:autocmd FileType php noremap <C-L> :!/usr/bin/php -l %>CR>

In the above vim configuration directovies the " character is a comment line and the autocmd is actually vim declarations.
The first :autocmd … declaration will instruct vim to execute your current opened php source file with the php cli interpreter whenever a key press of CTRL+M (C-m) occurs.

The second :autocmd … will add to your vim a shortcut, so whenever a CTRL+L (C-l) key combination is pressed VIM editor will check your current edited source file for syntax errors.
Therefore this will enable you to very easily periodically check if your file syntax is correct.

Well this things were really helpful to me, so I hope they will be profitable for you as well.
Cheers 🙂

Procedure Instructions to safe upgrade CentOS / RHEL Linux 7 Core to latest release

Thursday, February 13th, 2020

safe-upgrade-CentOS-and_Redhat_Enterprise_Linux_RHEL-7-to-latest-stable-release

Generally upgrading both RHEL and CentOS can be done straight with yum tool just we're pretty aware and mostly anyone could do the update, but it is good idea to do some
steps in advance to make backup of any old basic files that might help us to debug what is wrong in case if the Operating System fails to boot after the routine Machine OS restart
after the upgrade that is usually a good idea to make sure that machine is still bootable after the upgrade.

This procedure can be shortened or maybe extended depending on the needs of the custom case but the general framework should be useful anyways to someone that's why
I decided to post this.

Before you go lets prepare a small status script which we'll use to report status of  sysctl installed and enabled services as well as the netstat connections state and
configured IP addresses and routing on the system.

The script show_running_services_netstat_ips_route.sh to be used during our different upgrade stages:
 

# script status ###
echo "STARTED: $(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S'):" | tee /root/logs/yumcheckupdate-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out
systemctl list-unit-files –type=service | grep enabled
systemctl | grep ".service" | grep "running"
netstat -tulpn
netstat -r
ip a s
/sbin/route -n
echo "ENDED $(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S'):" | tee /root/logs/yumcheckupdate-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out
####

 

– Save the script in any file like /root/status.sh

– Make the /root/logs directoriy.
 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# mkdir /root/logs
[root@redhat: ~ ]# vim /root/status.sh
[root@redhat: ~ ]# chmod +x /root/status.sh

 

1. Get a dump of CentOS installed version release and grub-mkconfig generated os_probe

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# cat /etc/redhat-release  > /root/logs/redhat-release-vorher-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out
[root@redhat: ~ ]# cat /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober > /root/logs/grub2-efi-vorher-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out

 

2. Clear old versionlock marked RPM packages (if there are such)

 

On servers maintained by multitude of system administrators just like the case is inside a Global Corporations and generally in the corporate world , where people do access the systems via LDAP and more than a single person
has superuser privileges. It is a good prevention measure to use yum package management  functionality to RPM based Linux distributions called  versionlock.
versionlock for those who hear it for a first time is locking the versions of the installed RPM packages so if someone by mistake or on purpose decides to do something like :

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum install packageversion

Having the versionlock set will prevent the updated package to be installed with a different branch package version.

Also it will prevent a playful unknowing person who just wants to upgrade the system without any deep knowledge to be able to
run

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum upgrade

update and leave the system in unbootable state, that will be only revealed during the next system reboot.

If you haven't used versionlock before and you want to use it you can do it with:

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum install yum-plugin-versionlock

To add all the packages for compiling C code and all the interdependend packages, you can do something like:

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum versionlock gcc-*

If you want to clear up the versionlock, once it is in use run:

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  yum versionlock clear
[root@redhat: ~ ]#  yum versionlock list

 

3.  Check RPC enabled / disabled

 

This step is not necessery but it is a good idea to check whether it running on the system, because sometimes after upgrade rpcbind gets automatically started after package upgrade and reboot. 
If we find it running we'll need to stop and mask the service.

 

# check if rpc enabled
[root@redhat: ~ ]# systemctl list-unit-files|grep -i rpc
var-lib-nfs-rpc_pipefs.mount                                      static
auth-rpcgss-module.service                                        static
rpc-gssd.service                                                  static
rpc-rquotad.service                                               disabled
rpc-statd-notify.service                                          static
rpc-statd.service                                                 static
rpcbind.service                                                   disabled
rpcgssd.service                                                   static
rpcidmapd.service                                                 static
rpcbind.socket                                                    disabled
rpc_pipefs.target                                                 static
rpcbind.target                                                    static

[root@redhat: ~ ]# systemctl status rpcbind.service
● rpcbind.service – RPC bind service
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/rpcbind.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# systemctl status rpcbind.socket
● rpcbind.socket – RPCbind Server Activation Socket
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/rpcbind.socket; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)
   Listen: /var/run/rpcbind.sock (Stream)
           0.0.0.0:111 (Stream)
           0.0.0.0:111 (Datagram)
           [::]:111 (Stream)
           [::]:111 (Datagram)

 

4. Check any previously existing downloaded / installed RPMs (check yum cache)

 

yum install package-name / yum upgrade keeps downloaded packages via its operations inside its cache directory structures in /var/cache/yum/*.
Hence it is good idea to check what were the previously installed packages and their count.

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# cd /var/cache/yum/x86_64/;
[root@redhat: ~ ]# find . -iname '*.rpm'|wc -l

 

5. List RPM repositories set on the server

 

 [root@redhat: ~ ]# yum repolist
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, versionlock
Repodata is over 2 weeks old. Install yum-cron? Or run: yum makecache fast
Determining fastest mirrors
repo id                                                                                 repo name                                                                                                            status
!atos-ac/7/x86_64                                                                       Atos Repository                                                                                                       3,128
!base/7/x86_64                                                                          CentOS-7 – Base                                                                                                      10,019
!cr/7/x86_64                                                                            CentOS-7 – CR                                                                                                         2,686
!epel/x86_64                                                                            Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 7 – x86_64                                                                          165
!extras/7/x86_64                                                                        CentOS-7 – Extras                                                                                                       435
!updates/7/x86_64                                                                       CentOS-7 – Updates                                                                                                    2,500

 

This step is mandatory to make sure you're upgrading to latest packages from the right repositories for more concretics check what is inside in confs /etc/yum.repos.d/ ,  /etc/yum.conf 
 

6. Clean up any old rpm yum cache packages

 

This step is again mandatory but a good to follow just to have some more clearness on what packages is our upgrade downloading (not to mix up the old upgrades / installs with our newest one).
For documentation purposes all deleted packages list if such is to be kept under /root/logs/yumclean-install*.out file

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum clean all |tee /root/logs/yumcleanall-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out

 

7. List the upgradeable packages's latest repository provided versions

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum check-update |tee /root/logs/yumcheckupdate-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out

 

Then to be aware how many packages we'll be updating:

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  yum check-update | wc -l

 

8. Apply the actual uplisted RPM packages to be upgraded

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum update |tee /root/logs/yumupdate-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out

 

Again output is logged to /root/logs/yumcheckupate-*.out 

 

9. Monitor downloaded packages count real time

 

To make sure yum upgrade is not in some hanging state and just get some general idea in which state of the upgrade is it e.g. Download / Pre-Update / Install  / Upgrade/ Post-Update etc.
in mean time when yum upgrade is running to monitor,  how many packages has the yum upgrade downloaded from remote RPM set repositories:

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  watch "ls -al /var/cache/yum/x86_64/7Server/…OS-repository…/packages/|wc -l"

 

10. Run status script to get the status again

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# sh /root/status.sh |tee /root/logs/status-before-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out

 

11. Add back versionlock for all RPM packs

 

Set all RPM packages installed on the RHEL / CentOS versionlock for all packages.

 

#==if needed
# yum versionlock \*

 

 

12. Get whether old software configuration is not messed up during the Package upgrade (Lookup the logs for .rpmsave and .rpmnew)

 

During the upgrade old RPM configuration is probably changed and yum did automatically save .rpmsave / .rpmnew saves of it thus it is a good idea to grep the prepared logs for any matches of this 2 strings :
 

[root@redhat: ~ ]#   grep -i ".rpm" /root/logs/yumupdate-server-host-2020-01-20_14-30-41.out
[root@redhat: ~ ]#  grep -i ".rpmsave" /root/logs/yumupdate-server-host-2020-01-20_14-30-41.out
[root@redhat: ~ ]#  grep -i ".rpmnew" /root/logs/yumupdate-server-host-2020-01-20_14-30-41.out


If above commands returns output usually it is fine if there is is .rpmnew output but, if you get grep output of .rpmsave it is a good idea to review the files compare with the original files that were .rpmsaved with the 
substituted config file and atune the differences with the changes manually made for some program functionality.

What are the .rpmsave / .rpmnew files ?
This files are coded files that got triggered by the RPM install / upgrade due to prewritten procedures on time of RPM build.

 

If a file was installed as part of a rpm, it is a config file (i.e. marked with the %config tag), you've edited the file afterwards and you now update the rpm then the new config file (from the newer rpm) will replace your old config file (i.e. become the active file).
The latter will be renamed with the .rpmsave suffix.

If a file was installed as part of a rpm, it is a noreplace-config file (i.e. marked with the %config(noreplace) tag), you've edited the file afterwards and you now update the rpm then your old config file will stay in place (i.e. stay active) and the new config file (from the newer rpm) will be copied to disk with the .rpmnew suffix.
See e.g. this table for all the details. 

In both cases you or some program has edited the config file(s) and that's why you see the .rpmsave / .rpmnew files after the upgrade because rpm will upgrade config files silently and without backup files if the local file is untouched.

After a system upgrade it is a good idea to scan your filesystem for these files and make sure that correct config files are active and maybe merge the new contents from the .rpmnew files into the production files. You can remove the .rpmsave and .rpmnew files when you're done.


If you need to get a list of all .rpmnew .rpmsave files on the server do:

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  find / -print | egrep "rpmnew$|rpmsave$

 

13. Reboot the system 

To check whether on next hang up or power outage the system will boot normally after the upgrade, reboot to test it.

 

you can :

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  reboot

 

either

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  shutdown -r now


or if on newer Linux with systemd in ues below systemctl reboot.target.

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  systemctl start reboot.target

 

14. Get again the system status with our status script after reboot

[root@redhat: ~ ]#  sh /root/status.sh |tee /root/logs/status-after-$(hostname)-$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').out

 

15. Clean up any versionlocks if earlier set

 

[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum versionlock clear
[root@redhat: ~ ]# yum versionlock list

 

16. Check services and logs for problems

 

After the reboot Check closely all running services on system make sure every process / listening ports and services on the system are running fine, just like before the upgrade.
If the sytem had firewall,  check whether firewall rules are not broken, e.g. some NAT is not missing or anything earlier configured to automatically start via /etc/rc.local or some other
custom scripts were run and have done what was expected. 
Go through all the logs in /var/log that are most essential /var/log/boot.log , /var/log/messages … yum.log etc. that could reveal any issues after the boot. In case if running some application server or mail server check /var/log/mail.log or whenever it is configured to log.
If the system runs apache closely check the logs /var/log/httpd/error.log or php_errors.log for any strange errors that occured due to some issues caused by the newer installed packages.
Usually most of the cases all this should be flawless but a multiple check over your work is a stake for good results.
 

How to install Toshiba Satellite L40 B14 Wireless Adapter ( ID 0bda:8197 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B) on Ubuntu and Debian Linux

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

https://www.pc-freak.net/images/toshiba-satellite-l40

How to install Toshiba L40 B14 Wireless Adapter ( ID 0bda:8197 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B) on Ubuntu and Debian Linux
I've been struggling for more than 10 hours to fix up issues on a Ubuntu Maverick-Meerkaat with a rtl8187B Wireless Adapter

The RTL8187B almost drove me mad. I could see the wlan0 which meant the kernel is detecting the device, I could even bring it up with ifconfig wlan0 up , however when I tried it in gnome's network-manager or wicd the wireless networks were not showing up.

Trying to scan for networks using the commands:


ubuntu:~# iwlist wlan0 scan

was also unsuccesful, trying to bring up and down the wireless wlan0 interface with:


ubuntu:~# iwconfig wlan0 up

or


ubuntu:~# iwconfig wlan0 down

Both returned the error:
iwconfig: unknown command "up" and iwconfig: unknown command "down"

Running simply iwconfig was properly returning information about my Wireless Interface wlan0 :


wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off

The exact information I could get about the wireless device was via the command:


ubuntu:~# lsusb | grep realtek
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bda:8197 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B Wireless Adapter

Trying manually to scan for wireless networks from console or gnome-terminal with command returned also the below weird results:


ubuntu:~# iwconfig wlan0 scan
iwconfig: unknown command "scan"

More oddly tunning wlan0 interface with commands like:


ubuntu:~# iwconfig wlan0 mode managed
ubuntu:~# iwconfig wlan0 essid ESSID
ubuntu:~# iwconfig wlan0 rate 11M

were succesful …

I read a bunch of documentation online concerning the wireless card troubles on Ubuntu, Gentoo, Debian etc.

Just few of all the resources I've read and tried are:

http://rtl-wifi.sourceforge.net/wiki/Main_Page (Returning empty page already a lot resource)
http://rtl8187b.sourceforge.net (A fork of rtl-wifi.sourceforge.net which is still available though it was not usable)

Some of the other resources which most of the people recommended as a way to properly install the RTL8187B wireless driver on linux was located on the website:

http://datanorth.net/~cuervo/rtl8187b/ (Trying to access this page returned a 404 error e.g. this page is no-longer usable)

I found even a webpage in Ubuntu Help which claimed to explain how to properly install and configure the RTL8187B wireless driver on which is below:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Device/RealtekRTL8187b

Even the Ubuntu help instructions were pointing me to the broken cuervo's website URL

Anyways I was able to find the rtl8187b-modified-dist.tar.gz online and made a mirror of rtl8187b-modified-dist.tar.gz which you can download here

Another rtl8187b driver I found was on a toshiba website made especailly for the wireless linux drivers:

http://linux.toshiba-dme.co.jp/linux/eng/pc/sat_PSPD0_report.htm

The questionable file which was claimed to properly be able to make the Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B Wireless Adapter to work out was called rl8187b-modified-804.tar.gz.
I've made a mirror of rtl8187b-modified-804.tar.gz is here

None of the driver archives rtl8187b-modified-dist.tar.gz and rl8187b-modified-804.tar.gz that was supposed to make the Toshiba L40 realtek wireless to work out, after compiling and installing the drivers from source worked out …

Both archives produced plenty of error messages and it seems on newer kernels like the one on this notebook:

Linux zlatina 2.6.35-28-generic #50-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 18 19:00:26 UTC 2011 i686 GNU/Linux, they're no longer usable.

The compile errors I got when I tried compiling the rtl8187b driver provided by the archive rtl8187b-modified-dist were:


root@ubuntu:/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified# sh makedrv
rm -fr *.mod.c *.mod *.o .*.cmd *.mod.* *.ko *.o *~
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.35-28-generic/build M=/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified/ieee80211 CC=gcc modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.35-28-generic'
scripts/Makefile.build:49: *** CFLAGS was changed in "/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified/ieee80211/Makefile". Fix it to use EXTRA_CFLAGS. Stop.
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified/ieee80211] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.35-28-generic'
make: *** [modules] Error 2
rm -fr *.mod.c *.mod *.o .*.cmd *.ko *~
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.35-28-generic/build M=/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified/rtl8187 CC=gcc modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.35-28-generic'
scripts/Makefile.build:49: *** CFLAGS was changed in "/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified/rtl8187/Makefile". Fix it to use EXTRA_CFLAGS. Stop.
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified/rtl8187] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.35-28-generic'
make: *** [modules] Error 2
root@ubuntu:/home/zlatina/rtl8187b-modified#

Another driver I tried which was found on aircrack-ng.org's website was rtl8187_linux_26.1010.zip

Here are the error messages I experienced while I tried to compile the realtek wireless driver from the archive rtl8187_linux_26.1010.0622.2006


compilation terminated.
make[2]: *** [/home/zlatina/rtl8187_linux_26.1010.0622.2006/beta-8187/r8187_core.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [_module_/home/zlatina/rtl8187_linux_26.1010.0622.2006/beta-8187] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.35-28-generic'
make: *** [modules] Error 2
make: *** [modules] Error 2

I tried a number of fix ups hoping to solve the compile error messages, but my efforts were useless, as it seems many things has changed in newer Ubuntu versions and they could no longer be compiled.

As I realized I couldn't make the native drivers provided by the above sources compile, I decided to give a try to the Windows drivers for Realtek 8187B with ndiswrapper, a link for download of Realtek 8187B (RTL8187B_XP_6.1163.0331.2010_Win7_62.1182.0331.2010_UI_1.00.0179 is found here

I untarred the
RTL8187B_XP driver
and used ndiswrapper to load driver like so:


root@ubuntu:~# tar -zxvf
RTL8187B_XP_6.1163.0331.2010_Win7_....L.tar.gz
root@ubuntu:/home/zlatina/RTL8187B#
root@ubuntu:/home/zlatina/RTL8187B# cd Driver/WinXP
root@ubuntu:/home/zlatina/RTL8187B/Driver/WinXP# ndiswrapper -i net8187b.inf

In order to test the RTL8178B Windows driver I used:


root@ubuntu:~# ndiswrapper -l
net8187b : driver installed
device (0BDA:8197) present (alternate driver: rtl8187)

To finally load the Windows XP RTL8187B driver on the Ubuntu I used again ndiswrapper:


root@ubuntu:~# ndiswrapper -m

Further on I used the ndisgtk graphical ndiswrapper interface to once again test if the Windows driver is working on the Ubuntu and it seemed like it is working, however still my wicd was unable to find any wireless network ….

There were many online documentation which claimed that the driver for rtl8187b works out of the box on newer kernel releases (kernel versions > 2.6.24)

Finally I found out there is a driver which is a default one with the Ubuntu e.g. rtl8187.ko , I proceeded and loaded the module:


root@ubuntu:~# modprobe rtl8187

I also decided to check out if the hardware switch button of the Toshiba Satellite L40 notebook is not switched off and guess what ?! The Wireless ON/OFF button was switched OFF!!! OMG …

I switched on the button and wicd immediately started showing up the wireless networks …

To make the rtl8187 module load on Ubuntu boot up, I had to issue the command:


root@ubuntu:~# echo 'rtl8187' >> /etc/modules

Voila after all this struggle the wireless card is working now, it's sad I had to loose about 10 hours of time until I come with the simple solution of using the default provided ubuntu driver rtl8187 , what is strange is how comes that it does not load up automatically.

Thanks God it works now.

Beatuiful Coptic Orthodox Church hymns – Coptic Orthodox Church one of the most ancient Christian Churches

Tuesday, November 27th, 2012

Coptic Hymn – Hos Erouf

A curious custom of the Coptic Church is the liturgy that prays and sings it in Coptic, the original language of ancient Egypt. The Church keeps alive the language of the pharaohs, which was written in hieroglyphics, hieratic and demotic and now a modified version of the Greek alphabet, Egyptian written in Greek and demotic (the Copt) was gradually being forgotten, lost ground to the Arabic and thus became incomprehensible. However, the Coptic Church preserved the ancient Egyptian language by tradition thanks to its rites. The video shows images and also religious Copts of pharaonic Egypt, the Copts are the descendants of the ancient Egyptians who have become Christians

O lord Jesus help me.coptic hymn – An coptic hymn in arabic language (not coptic) with english subtitle

Coptic orthodox St Mary Hymn

One can see the Roman Catholic influence on some of the shown icons. The music however is simply terrific!
The Coptic Christian spirituality can be felt. It is well known fact from egypt a lot of monks has spread Chrisian faith in Western Europe.

Je Nai Nan Lord have mercy, coptic orthodox hymns جي ناي نان, ارحمنا

Oh poor Christians of our age we are. We have no love we have nothing.

Coptic Orthodox Hymn: The Virgin M.A.R.Y العدرا م ر ي م (English Subtitles)

"O Sing Unto Him…" Coptic Orthodox Hymn

Blessed is He (Evlogimenos Palm Sunday Festal Hymn English) – Orthodox Hymn (Coptic Rite)

I live in the Netherlands, here people are slowly forgetting their faith who made them what they're now. The state of Christian Church is so weak. We have no prayer power. We walk sick, we don't live like brothers, Oh Lord help us and re-unite your sheeps and put us back in your farm. Lord Have Mercy, Lord Have Mercy, Lord Have Mercy

Coptic Orthodox Hymn: Aripsalin – آربصالين O sing unto Him who was crucified, buried and resurrected, who trampled and abolished death, praise Him and exalt Him above all. Take off the old man, and put on the new and superior one, come closer to greatness of mercy, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + All you Christian people, the priests and the deacons, glorify the Lord for He is worthy, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + Come to us O three children, whom Christ our God has lifted, and from the Devil has delivered, praise Him and exalt Him above all. For the sake of your God the Messiah, the Giver of all good things, come unto us O Hananiah, praise Him and exalt Him above all. O Azariah the zealot, morning and noon and the evening, glorify the power of the Trinity, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + Behold Emmanuel [our Lord], is now in our midst O Mishael, proclaim with the voice of joy, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + Gather now and persevere, and proclaim with the priests, bless the Lord all His works, praise Him and exalt Him above all. The heavens declare the glory, of God until this day, O you angels whom He has made, praise Him and exalt Him above all. Now all you powers of the Lord, bless His honored name, O sun and moon and all the stars, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + And also you rain and dew, sing praises unto our Savior, for He is the God of our fathers, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + Glorify the Lord O clouds and winds, together with the souls and the spirits, O you cold and fire and heat, praise Him and exalt Him above all. You also nights and days, light and darkness and lightning, glorify the Lover of Mankind, praise Him and exalt Him above all. You trees and all that springs on the earth, and all that moves in the sea, mountains and the forests, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + Praise without ceasing, the Lord the King of the kings, O you rivers and seas, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + And we also seeing them, let us say with all these things, bless the Lord all you birds, praise Him and exalt Him above all. O snow and ice, cattle and wild beasts, bless the Lord of lords, praise Him and exalt Him above all. Bless the Lord as befits Him, and not like the heretics, all you sons of men, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + O Israel offer before Him, honor and glory in a joyful voice, all you priests of Emmanuel, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + You servants of the true God, the souls of the righteous, and the humble and the charitable, praise Him and exalt Him above all. God my God is the One, who saved you from danger, O Sedrach Misach and Abednago, praise Him and exalt Him above all. Hurry with great haste, O you righteous of the Lord, and all the creatures He has made, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + Coolness and repose without ceasing, grant unto all of us, that we may joyfully proclaim, praise Him and exalt Him above all. + And also Your poor servant Sarkis, make him without condemnation, that he may join all those and say, praise Him and exalt Him above all.

The Dangers of Authority Over-Obedience

Thursday, June 28th, 2012

dangers-of-authority-over-obesity

How much and to what level should, we obey authority. And is it really that authorities in force things always the best for the masses? Well history has shown and shows again and again that being obedient to Authority is a good think only if the authority did not pass a certain borders. In second world war both Nazis and Stalinist Russian "pogroms" passed this borders. So how this came to be? How Stalin and Hitler become the totalitarian dictators they did?

By completely dis-obeying the authorities at their times. Hitler was in Jail, Stalin was membering a communist guerillas who blow up trains and did subversive activities to Tsarist Russia. Hence obviously this two evil man was against the their times authorities. The way they raise up to power was also with breaking then ruling authorities. As a result of their dis-like for the system before Nazi Germany and Communist Russia both of the dictators lived in isolation be it among communist with anarchistic anti-government ideas in Stalin's case or living inprisoned in Hitler. The later results of being exposed to this isolation become evident, when by all means they came to power. Both of them were people with enormous egos (egoists). The only think that moved both of them was their own megalomanias and desires to be controlling imitating how God controls the universe.

But the WW II killed jews and the pogroms Stalin did in Russia was not only Stalin and Hitler's fault. It was a result of one false propaganda and openly anti-christian spread ideas all around the world. This atrocities were a fruit of the huge isolation that happened in many people lifes and their detachment from faith in God, also it was a cause of a huge masses of people who obeyed the new-created communist and Nazi authorities without questioning.
True Christians at the time in both Russia and Germany tried to oppose the new ungodly totalitarian order mainly (through press), the attempt was futile.

The reason was that many people in Germany become so heavy dependent on the local authorities. That the masses did not have the guts to go to the streets and oppose the new anti-human laws edicted. In Russia, probably at least half of the people living their lived in villages and used to obey the Tsar's authority as the monarchy was a prooved working system and for many generations people lived in monarchy and knew only monarchy; also many people in Russia were lacking high level education neither were prepared to fight something as the raising communism sponsored by Westerm Europe. So Western Europe gave money to Lenin and the communists in Russia to destroy the country monarchy from within, whether Hitler took a loan from America. Just think for a while and see how ridiculous all this is … What makes the whole thing even more ridiculous was that the money for financing both Hitler and Stalin activities (including the atrocities against poor jew people)) was financed with bank money given as loans by other Jews …

All this money were loaned because of dirty profit. There were many people in the chain who could have said no and protest against loaning the money but not wanting to disobey the system they were silently helping the whole war to bloom.

Now just 67 years after thanksfully by God's grace this war has over, the world headed the same direction as before the WW II. The severe economic crisis, the isolation of large masses of individual from family, the decay of family values, the lack of community and the over-use of technology and non-direct communication. All this makes us isolated. The increased isolation makes us unable to operate normally in many cases and hence highly dependent on the social system (just see how many people in Europe are living thanks to social pension).
The social system dependence and inability to live and think out of the established governmental system puts us in a situation, where we cannot live out of the system and to always adapt to the system. For many things, we can't say NO anymore. The over-increased surveillance and people tracking that was accepted as normal not only through Europe and America continent but the whole world is a good example on how publicity of severe freedom threat is kept in secret. People who talk about their dislike for surveillance and the possible short future abuse are even nowadays considered as abnormal paranoids. Suddenly it is more and more happening that normal society concerned people are being concerned as crazy and probably the future fate of people who in anyways question the more and more totalitarian like system that is being build right before our eyes will be similar to the WW II jews extermination …

Hannah Arendt "The Dangers of Obedience"

Why Russophobes hates Putin – How situation changed in Russia during Vladimir Putin presidency

Thursday, April 3rd, 2014

why-Russophobes-hates-putin-how-situation-changed-in-Russia-during-putin-reign

POSITIVE RESULTS  FOR RUSSIA DURING REIGN OF VLADIMIR PUTIN

  • For last 12 years of government Putin increated Russia's budget 22 times.
  • Increated warfare spendings 30 times.
  • Increated GDP 12 times (by GDP Russia moved from 36th to 6th place in the World).
  • Increated Russian golden reserves 48 times.
  • Returned back 256 oil, petrol and other natural resources sources / mine-yards (under non-Russian government curretnly are only 3 of
  • Russia's source for natural resources.
  • Nationalized 65% of oil industry and 95% of gas industry.
  • For a 5th consequential year 2nd / 3rd place in export of grain (just for a comparison USA is currently ranked 4th largest weed exporter). The avarage sallary of national institution employed increased 18.5 times.
  • Avarage pension increased 14 times.
  • Reduce of population decreased from 1.5 million per year in year 1999 to 21 000 in 2011, i.e. 71 times.
  • Prohibited deputies in Government to have bank accounts in foreign banks.Prevented American attack against Syria.
  • Put an end to war in Chechnya.


From January y. 2000 to present times Russian ruble rate changed from 28 Rubles per dollar to 29 Rubles per dollar – i.e. severe inflation in Russia ended.Present day Russia is a normal European country not that poor country where approimate pension was 20 dollars and where masters was the financial pyramids and the International Monatery Fund

In 1992 Eltsin cancelled completely export duty of oil products.
In 23 January E. Primakov government forced again oil taxes.
In export price of 9.5 dollars per barrel custom taxes were 2.5 euro per tone and in price 12,5 dollars per barrel 5 euro / tone.Such a minor increase in taxes produced 14 billion rubles in already empty Russian budget.

In August 1999 Eltsin assigned Putin for prime minister.
In just a month later the export taxes Putin increased duty taxes to 7.5 euro/tone and in 8 december to 15 euro/tone. Till then incomes from oil taxes has been steadily increasing and nowadays exporters calculate in national budget half of incomes origin from oil prices and export taxes.
From January to November 2007 Russian customs influxed in national budget 2.57 trillion Rubles.
Oil export takes has drastically raised incomes of citizens.This had major impact on construction business.All Russia nowadays is in reality enormous "construction yard", to illustrate from January to September 2007 375 009 homes were built occupying 34 million square meters.
Cement factories cannot satisfy local market requirements and Russia is forced to import cement from China.
Increased incomes of population led to increase in estates search, this increased apartment prices and as a consequence increased incomes from building activies.
Result is in consutriction business are invested enormous amounts of capital and a real construction boom is observed.
Another consequence of increased income was increase in demand for automobiles. Just for 2006 the quantity of demanded automobiles in Russia increased with 45% and reached 32 billion dollars with a count of sold new cars numbering 2 million. By indicator of sold new cars Russia orders on 5th place after in Europe taking place right after Germany, Great Britain, Italy and France.

Currently are being build a couple of new automobile plants, and existing ones increase production volume.
All this is consequence of increase in demand and therefore from increase in citizens income.

rn>For 10 years budets expenditure for social politics (pensions and social help) increased with 30%.

Before Putin pensions were under existence-minimum with appr. 25% and in 90th pensions were not paid at all.
Now pensions are 50% above existence-minimum and is constantly increasing.
In 2000 approximate sallary in Russia was 2223 Rubles (appr. 80 dollars).
Now approximate sallary in Russia 19174 rubles (apprx. 660 dollars).
Purchase of domestic goods for 10 years increased 10 times. Number of own automobilse increased 3 times.
Putin nationalized YUKOS, without 'making nervous' emering Russian busness in a market manner – with bankruptcy and auction. All this happened lawful, following laws adopted by democratic parliament.
The president doesn't have the right to use other  means. Formal occasion for arest of Hodorkovski were taxation frauds of YUKOS. In such machinations are involved practically all large private companies and this is the reason why nobody believes that excuse. It is unbelievable. However Putin simply defended Russia's interests.

 

 

Putin_russia_speech_and-the-russian-flag-a-primer-for-honest-politic


The proof for that is transmission of actives of YUKOS to national corporation "Rosneft". It would have been more righteous if this actives were just confiscated … but there are laws and Putin had just stick to them. After all the President can't go out of framework of his jurisdiction.
It can be just added that after Khodorkovsky  was injailed, collectivity (incomes)of taxes of ex-actives of YUKOS increased 80 TIMES!
In y. 2004 Putin finally removed law "Agreement for Separation of Production  (Separation Agreement)". This law was annexed during Eltsin's regime, in order to benefit Oligarchs (Khodorkovsky, Gusinsky, Beresovsky etc.) in order to make possible Russian oil reserves to be possessed by Western (American and British) oil corporations.
By the power of this law Russian oil and natural fields went into international jurisdiction, and therefore the money from Russian oil doesn't entered budget of Russia but influxed in Western companies.
Money from oil drills went mainly into Dutch "Shell" for covering of corporation expenses. Only after something remained from that they sold it to Russia. In 2006 Putin declared following in that connection "And now we don't get anything from them and if they increase their profit we will not receive it even in 10 years from now."
In fact to this moment Russia didn't get any money from their own oil.
After the law was removed in 2004, revenues in budeg increased from 3 to 4 times.
After cancellation of contracts for oil fields "Sakhalin-1" and "Sakhalin-2" Russia's loans to American company calculated to 700 million dollars, for that time this was too much. The whole Anglo-Saxon world pricked against Putin because of a simple reason: "UK planned to assure its oil reserves for years to come in expense of Russia – only Germany and France who didn't have a direct interest in that process kept neutral …
In 1992 – 1995 the head aparatus of Russia formed its view based on foreign advisors. All legislation from 1990's was hence written by them. In Russian country administration was working 10 000 foreign coaches.  George Soros was financing writting of student history books where the Battle for Stalingrad was mentioned in only 2 pages and about the meeting between Elbe and Soviet and American soldiers (Elbe Day) in 10 pages.

 

Russian_Army_meeting_American_Army-Elba-day


: In that mournful times on pupils notebook you can see portrainst of 4 American presidents of USA.
Until this very day there are left relics from that anti-Russian propaganda but hopefully with time Putin will throw away american propaganda from education system.
But why Putin cannot immediately dismiss all this hostile to Russia clerks? The reason is simple: Constitution of Russia written under dictation of Western coaches, does not allow quick changse into it.
Nowadays the President is just one of many clerks with resticted power. Yes truly president power is a bit bigger than other clerks, but country head can't influence everything. The president can't even define his ministers, even though by law this is part of his jurisdiction.

Overfulfilment of budet in times of Putin govern allowed craetion of country Stabilization fund. Nowdays is collected huge golden-currency reserve and practically Russia doesn't have external debt.

War in Kavkaz is over, separatists were destroyed. All famous terrorist leaders were liquidated physically.
Even Zelimkhan_Yandarbiyev was killed in Qatar, Basaev and Umarov were also destoyed. Putin promised "to drawn them if necessary even in their own toilet dish" and he fulfilled his promise. Of course, separatism is not completely destroyed, such conflicts cannot be quickly solved, but nowadays situation in Kakvaz is the best possible. If Chechnya's elite feels the power of Moscow and benefits of being a surrender – then separatism will fade away. This is exactly what happens. The attempts of western spy centrals to supply terrorists are still leading to separate terr. acts but this is the maximum – there will be no war anymore.
 
For 10 years Putin increased political influence of Russia in world and lifted its image. Today Russia follows its own interests, and not Western ones.
It is not coincidence that Putin was recognized as the most influential world politic of 2013. He prevented Russia's devastation led country out of catastrophe caused by Gorbachov and Eltsin. That's the rason why Western Medias abhor him and compare him with devil.
Everyone interested in political life in Russia seems, that the battle against corruption took unforeseen measures.
At least 2-3 times weekly on TV are shown arrests  of clergy and policeman and news inform about sentences against government employees.
Lets not forget Crimea, here is how it was given to Ukraine.

In 1992 on signature of Treaty of Belovesh for dissolution of USSR Ukrainian representative Leonid Kravchuk noticed that Boris Eltsin is "in play with Vodka" and is delaying signature, he urged him with words: –

"Borya if you like take Crimea, please just  sign the contract!".

Drunk Eltsin nobly waved hand:

"What for I need Crimea? Here it is your present!"

And signed and by one scratch he "killed" efforts of Prince Grigory Potemkin, Catherina the Great, heros of Sevastopol in 1856, heroes defenders of Sevastopol in 1941 …

Few days ago Putin removed consequences of this "joke with history" – and people of Crimea sung and danced on squares, returning to their motherland.
 

Here is Why Russophobes hates Putin!

 

 

Source Materials from http://rublogers.ru
Translated by: Georgi Georgiev
This translation is copyrighted and copying can only be done with explicit allowance of author Author or link to original translation
http://rublogers.ru/

 

Raspberry Pi – Cheap portable credit-card sized single board Linux computer box

Thursday, November 7th, 2013

RaspberryPi tiny-computer running Linux and free software Logo

Not of a the latest thing out there but I believe a must know for every geek is existence of Raspberry Pi mini computer Linux board. It is a geek credit-card sized mini PC on extremely cheap price between 25$ and 35$ bucks (e.g. Raspberry Pi model A and Raspberry Pi Model B).

Raspberry Pi hardware you get for this ultra low price is as follows:

  • Broadcom BCM2835 system on chip
  • ARM Mobile processor model ARM1176JZF running at 700 Mhz (overlocking up to 1Ghz is possible – overclocked RP is called Turbo 🙂 )!
  • VideoCore IV GPU with 512 MBytes of ram
  • No Build hard disk or solid-state drive but instead designed to use SD-Card as a Storage
  • two video outputs
  • composite RCA and an HDMI port
  • 3.5mm audio output
  • 2 or 1SD/MMC/SDIO card slot (depending on device model A or model B)
  • Micro USB adapter power charger 500mA  (2.5 watts) – Model and 700mA (3.5 watts)

Raspberry PI mini computer hardware running Linux explained picture

The idea of whole device is to make cheap affordable device for pupils and people from third countries who can't afford to pay big money for a full-featured computer. Achievement is unique all you need to Raspberry Pi credit card sized device is external keyboard a mouse, SD-card and a monitor, this makes a 700Mhz featured almost fully functional computer for less than lets say 80$ whether used with a second hand monitor / mouse and kbd :). A fully functional computer or full functional thin client for as less as 80$ yes that's what RaspberryPi is!

It is recommendable that SD-Card storage on which it is installed is at least 4GB as this is part of its minimum requirement, however it is best if you can get an SD-Card of 32GBytes whether you plan to use its whole graphic functionalities.

Raspberry Pi Hardware is not too powerful to run a version of Windows as well as there is no free version of MS-Windows for ARM Processor, so basicly device is planned to run free software OSes GNU / Linux. 5 operating systems are working fine with the mini-board device as time of writting;
 

  • Raspbian – Debian "Wheezy" Linux port
  • Pidora – Fedora mixed version ported to run on Raspberry Pi
  • Risk OS port
  • Arch Linux port for ARM devices
  • Slackware Arm
    FreeBSD / NetBSD
  • QtonPi

Recommended and probably best distro port is for Debian Squeeze

To boot an OS into raspberry PI dowbnload respective image from raspberrypi.org

– Use application for copying and extracting image to SD-Card like Win32 Disk Imager – whether on Windows platform

Win32DiskImager burning raspberry PI mini Linux card board computer box image

– Or from Linux format SD-Card with gparted (N!B! format disk to be in FAT32 filesystem), extrat files and copy them to SD-CARD.

Once Raspberry Pi loads up it will drop you into Linux console, so further configuration will have to be done manually with invoking plenty of apt-get commands (which I will not talk about here as there are plenty of manuals already) – you will have to manually install your Desktop … Default shipped Web browser in Debian is Midori and due to lack of ported version of flash player for ARM streaming video websites like youtube.com / vimeo.com does not work in browser. There is a Google Chrome for Raspberry Pi port but just like with Midori heavy object loaded websites works very slow and thus not very suitable for multimedia.

raspberry pi cheaest portable linux powered computer sized of a credit card

Raspberry Pi device is very suitable for ThinClient use there is a special separate project – Raspberry ThinClient Project – using which a hobbyist can save 400$ for buying proprietary ThinClient.

RaspberryPI linux as a free software hardware thinclient picture

 

How to disable ACPI on productive Linux servers to decrease kernel panics and increase CPU fan lifespan

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

Linux TUX ACPI logo / Tux Hates ACPI logohttps://www.pc-freak.net/images/linux_tux_acpi_logo-tux-hates-acpi.png

Why would anyone disable ACPI support on a server machine??
Well  ACPI support kernel loaded code is just another piece of code constantly being present in the memory,  that makes the probability for a fatal memory mess up leading to  a fatal bug resulting in system crash (kernel panic) more likely.

Many computers ship with buggy or out of specifications ACPI firmware which can cause a severe oddities on a brand new bought piece of comp equipment.

One such oddity related to ACPI motherboard support problems is if you notice your machine randomly powering off or failing to boot with a brand new Linux installed on it.

Another reason to switch off ACPI code will would to be prevent the CPU FAN rotation from being kernel controlled.

If the kernel controls the CPU fan on  high CPU heat up it will instruct the fan to rotate quickly and on low system loads it will bring back the fan to loose speed.
 This frequent switch of FAN from high speed to low speed  increases the probability for a short fan damage due to frequent changes of fan speed. Such a fan damage leads often to  system outage due to fan failure to rotate properly.

Therefore in my view it is better ACPI support is switched off completely on  servers. On some servers ACPI is useful as it can be used to track CPU temperature with embedded motherboard sensors with lm_sensors or any piece of hardwre vendor specific software provided. On many machines, however lm_sensors will not properly recognize the integrated CPU temperature sensors and hence ACPI is mostly useless.

There are 3 ways to disable fully or partially ACPI support.

- One is to disable it straight for BIOS (best way IMHO)
- Disable via GRUB or LILO passing a kernel parameter
- Partial ACPI off-ing - /disabling the software that controls the CPU fan/

1. Disable ACPI in BIOS level

Press DEL, F1, F2, F10 or whatever the enter bios key combination is go through all the different menus (depending on the vios BENDOR) and make sure every occurance of ACPI is set to off / disable whatever it is called.

Below is a screenshot of menus with ACPI stuff on a motherboard equipped with Phoenix AwardBIOS:

BIOS ACPI Disable power Off Phoenix BIOS

This is the in my opinon best and safest way to disable ACPI power saving, Unfortunately some newer PCs lack the functionality to disable ACPI; (probably due to the crazy "green" policy the whole world is nowdays mad of).

If that's the case with you, thanksfully there is a "software way" to disable ACPI via passing kernel options via GRUB and LILO boot loaders.

2. Disabling ACPI support on kernel boot level through GRUB boot loader config

There is a tiny difference in command to pass in order to disable  ACPI depending on the Linux installed  GRUB ver. 1.x or GRUB 2.x.

a) In GRUB 0.99 (GRUB version 1)

Edit file /etc/grub/menu.lst or /etc/grub/grub.conf (location differs across Linux distribution). Therein append:

acpi=off

to the end of kernel command line.

Here is an example of a kernel command line with ACPI not disabled (example taken from CentOS server grub.conf):

[root@centos ~]# grep -i title -A 4 /etc/grub/grub.conf
title Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (2.6.18-36.el5)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-36.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 console=ttyS0,115200n8
initrd /initrd-2.6.18-36.el5.img

The edited version of the file with acpi=off included should look like so:

title Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server (2.6.18-36.el5)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18-36.el5 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 console=ttyS0,115200n8 acpi=off
initrd /initrd-2.6.18-36.el5.img

The kernel option root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 means the the server is configured to use LVM (Logical Volume Manager).

b) Disabling ACPI on GRUB version 1.99 +

This version is by default installed on newer Ubuntu and Debian Linux-es.

In grub 1.99 on latest Debian Squeeze, the file to edit is located in /boot/grub/grub.cfg. The file is more messy than with its predecessor menu.lst (grub 0.99).
Thanks God there is no need to directly edit the file (though this is possible), but on newer Linuces (as of time of writting the post), there is another simplied grub config file /etc/grub/config

Hence to add the acpi=off to 1.99 open /etc/grub/config find the line reading:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"

and append the "acpi=off" option, e.g. the line has to change to:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet acpi=off"

On some servers it might be better to also disable APIC along with ACPI:

Just in case you don't know what is the difference between ACPI and APIC, here is a short explanation:

ACPI = Advanced Configuration and Power Interface

APIC = Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controllers

ACPI is the system that controls your dynamic speed fans, the power button behavior, sleep states, etc.

APIC is the replacement for the old PIC chip that used to come imbedded on motherboards that allowed you to setup interrupts for your soundcard, ide controllers, etc.

Hence on some machines experiencing still problems with even ACPI switched off, it is helpful  to disable the APIC support too, by using:

acpi=off noapic noacpi

Anyways, while doing the changes, be very very cautious or you might end up with un-boot-able server. Don't blame me if this happens :); be sure you have a backup option if server doesn't boot.

To assure faultless kernel boot, GRUB has ability to be configured to automatically load up a second kernel if 1st one fails to boot, if you need that read the grub documentation on that.

To load up the kernel with the new setting, give it a restart:

[root@centos ~]# shutdown -r now
....

3. Disable ACPI support on kernel boot time on Slackware or other Linuxes still booting kernel with LILO

Still, some Linux distros like Slackware, decided to keep the old way and use LILO (LInux LOader) as a default boot loader.

Disabling ACPI support in LILO is done through /etc/lilo.conf

By default in /etc/lilo.conf, there is a line:

append= acpi=on

it should be changed to:

append= acpi=off

Next to load up the new acpi disabled setting, lilo has to be reloaded:

slackware:~# /sbin/lilo -c /etc/lilo.conf
....

Finally a reboot is required:

slackware:~# reboot
....

(If you don't have a physical access or someone near the server you better not 🙂 )

4. Disable ACPI fan control support on a running Linux server without restart

This is the most secure work-around, to disabling the ACPI control over the machine CPU fan, however it has a downside that still the ACPI code will be loaded in the kernel and could cause kernel issues possibly in the long run – lets say the machine has uptime of more than 2 years…

The acpi support on a user level  is controlled by acpid or haldaemon (depending on the Linux distro), hence to disable the fan control on servers this services has to be switched off:

a) disabling ACPI on Debian and deb based Linux-es

As of time of writting on Debian Linux servers acpid (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface event daemon) is there to control how power management will be handled. To disable it stop it as a service (if running):

debian:~# /etc/init.d/acpid stop

To permanently remove acpid from boot up on system boot disable it with update-rc.d:

debian:~# update-rc.d acpid disable 2 3 4 5
update-rc.d: using dependency based boot sequencing
insserv: Script iptables is broken: incomplete LSB comment.
insserv: missing `Required-Start:' entry: please add even if empty.
insserv: warning: current start runlevel(s) (empty) of script `acpid' overwrites defaults (2 3 4 5).
insserv: warning: current stop runlevel(s) (2 3 4 5) of script `acpid' overwrites defaults (empty).
insserv: missing `Required-Start:' entry: please add even if empty.

b) disabling ACPI on RHEL, Fedora and other Redhat-s (also known as RedHacks 🙂 )

I'm not sure if this is safe,as many newer rpm based server system services,  might not work properly with haldaemon disabled.

Anyways you can give it a try if when it is stopped there are issues just bring it up again.

[root@rhel ~]# /etc/init.d/haldaemon stop

If all is fine with the haldaemon switched off (hope so), you can completely disable it to load on start up with:

[root@centos ~]# /sbin/chkconfig --level 2 3 4 5 haldaemon off

Disabling ACPI could increase a bit your server bills, but same time decrease losses from downtimes, so I guess it worths its costs 🙂

 

God’s Power Will be with Us – A famour Christian Song performed in Bulgarian, Russian and Serbian Orthodox Churches

Friday, October 26th, 2012

Български Песнопения – Господи сил, с нами буди / Gospodi syl pomiluy nas – GODs POWER WILL BE WITH US (A Bulgarian Orthodox Church) song variant

Господи сил с нами буди – Gospod i sil s nami budi – GODs POWER WILL BE WITH US (Russian Orthodox Church) song variant

The Church lyrics in Modern Slavonic is:

Текст песни Господи сил с нами буди иного бо разве Тебе помощника в скорбех не имамы Господи сил помилуй нас Хвалите Бога во святых Его хвалите Его во утвержении силы Его Господи сил с нами буди Хвалите Его на силах Его хвалите Его по множеству велич, Хор Московского Сретенского монастыря:

Господи сил с нами буди,
иного бо разве Тебе помощника в скорбех не имамы:
Господи сил, помилуй нас.

Хвалите Бога во святых Его, хвалите Его во утвержении силы Его.
Господи сил с нами буди:

Хвалите Его на силах Его, хвалите Его по множеству величествия Его.
Господи сил с нами буди:

Хвалите Его во гласе трубнем, хвалите Его во псалтири и гуслех.
Господи сил с нами буди:

Хвалите Его в тимпане и лице, хвалите Его во струнах и органе.
Господи сил с нами буди:

Хвалите Его в кимвалех доброгласных, хвалите Его в кимвалех восклицания: всякое дыхание да хвалит Господа.
Господи сил с нами буди:

Хвалите Бога во святых Его, хвалите Его во утвержении силы Его.
Господи сил, с нами буди:

Слава: Господи, аще не быхом святыя Твоя имели молитвенники,
и благостыню Твою милующую нас:
како смели быхом Спасе, пети Тя,
Егоже славословят непрестанно ангели?
Сердцеведче, пощади души наша.

И ныне: Многая множества моих Богородице прегрешений,
к Тебе прибегох Чистая, спасения требуя.
Посети немощствующую мою душу,
и моли Сына Твоего и Бога нашего,
дати ми оставление, яже содеях лютых,
едина Благословенная.

Всесвятая Богородице, во время живота моего не остави мене,
человеческому предстательству не ввери мя:
но Сама заступи, и помилуй мя.

Все упование мое на Тя возлагаю, Мати Божия,
сохрани мя под кровом Твоим.

I don’t know if above Gospodi Sil s Nami Budit song which is in Church Slavonic – ( Ancient Bulgarian Language) has translation somewhere on the Internet but as far as I checked I couldn’t find any translation and hence I took some time trying to approximately translate, above included text I found on the Internet.

It is a bit hard for me and maybe I’m mistaken somewhere in the translation as I’m not understanding very well Church Slavonic but I hope the song will give a general idea, what this so beatiful song lyrics are approximately saying in modern English.


Text song the Gods Power will be with us, You we have as helper in our sorrows, Let God’s Power have mercy on us.
Praise him and and His Power, Praise Him becaues of his Great Mercies. – performed by Moscow’s Sretenski Monastery Church Choire

Gods Power will be with us … helper in our sorrows we have. God’s power will be with us
Oh Power / (force) of God, have mercy on us!

Praise (Glorify) the Lord in his holiness, praise him testifying his power.
God’s Power / (force) will be with us!

Glorify Him because of his power, Praise him because of his multitude of greatness-es.
Gods Power will be with us!

Praise (Glorify) Him with voice of trumpets, Praise him with Psalms and (pipes ?).
Gods Power will be with us!

Praise Him in (timpans and lices – not sure how this is translated – means other musical instruments?) – Praise him in strings and organs.
Gods Power will be with us!

Praise Him with cymbals and (good hearted?) voices, praise him, praise Him with exclamations: every living soul (exhalation) to glorify the Lord.
Gods Power will be with us:

Praise the Lord in all holiness, Praise Him in statement of his power.
Gods Power will be with us:

Glory: Oh Lord, If we do not have (byhom?) Your holy prayer books,
and the goodness of thy prayer books and the goodness of all saints who pray for us; what would we do oh Saviour, we who sing you.

You are glorified all time by Angels

You who glorify all the time Angels.
Seer of all hearts, have mercy on our souls.

And again: Many are my prayers oh Holy Theotokos / (Virgin Mary), I have come to you the most pure, asking (requiring) rescue.

Come to my infirm (weak) soul,
and pray Your Son and and Our Lord,
to grant me Forgiveness of sins,
Because I’m poor and week (in evil), You who are most Blessed among Mankind.

Oh you most Holy Theotokos, in my lifetime don’t leave me on a human mercy (hope) but you alone intercede on my behalf and Have Mercy on Me!

All my hopе I give to you, Oh Mother of God,
Rescue (Кееp) me under your Shelter / (Shroud).

God’s Power Will be With Us is a triumph song of Victory of the Holy Orthodox Christian faith and the Orthodox Christians over all evil that is in the post sin fallen world. It is a Victorious Chant stating God’s power is with all us Orthodox Christians.

It is an expression of the power that our Holy Orthodox Christian faith contains. Gods power will be with us is a well known for all Eastern Orthodox Slavonic Christians. It is being sing in most if not all Slavonic Eastern Orthodox Churches around the world i.e. – Bulgaria, Russia, Serbia

It is common that this very beautiful Ancient Church Slavonic song is being nowdays sung, by Orthodox Christian choires even in the Western World which so sadly is nowdays predominated by Roman Catholic and Protestant (denominations beliefs). Here is God’s power will be with us – as sung in Church Slavonicin a Roman Catholic Chapel

Orthodox Christian Chant – Gospodi sil s nami (Russe Znamenny) / Gospodi sil s nami budit

Господи cил c нами буди sung by – Мужской Хор Свято-Данилова Монастыря – Не Отврати Лица Твоего
6 – Господи сил с нами буди

Pojanje Koviljskih Monaha-Psalam 150 (Part of Gospodi sil s nami budit – Repetancance Great Lent Canon sing in Serbian Monasteries)

This Church chanting song is sing in the Great Lent Church period around all Slavonic Churches around the world. The spiritual deepness the song contains and spiritual joy is amazingly great for us Eastern Orthodox Christians; it is barely impossible to explain in words, but I hope by listening it the listener re-unites with our Christ = (Messiah) = Saviour and his Holy Apostolic Church – The Orthodox Church!

This Orthodox Song is also present, probably in Greek, Syriac, Jerusalem, Ethiopian,Coptic, Chinese and the rest of local Orthodox Church-es throughout the whole universe. If someone from other Orthodox Churches reading this post, can point me out to their Church variant of these glorious Church hymn I will be mostly thankful!

Glory be to the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit now and Forever and Ever. For Gods Power – Christ’s Holy Spirit will be with us ever unto the Ages of Ages accordinly to the promise of our Lord Jesus in Holy Gospels.