Alexandru T. and I have exchanged a few emails, and he sent through a few helpful suggestions that were provided from ICOP. I have included them below. Thanks Alexandru! Install Debian 5.0 on a normal PC (using a netinst image, for minimal install) After installation boot normally from the same PC Then, take the kernel from ftp://icop.com.tw/DIS_info/VDX/operating_system/VDX_Linux/linux-image-2.6.30-vortex86mx_1.0_i386.deb and then issue the following commands : # dpkg -i linux-image-2.6.30-vortex86mx_1.0_i386.deb # update-initramfs -k 2.6.30-vortex86mx -c # update-grub # restart Then take the hard-drive and install it on the Vortex86DX When GRUB menu appears, press “e” and modify the boot loader as …

As a preface, I take absolutely no credit for the below instructions. Stefan L kindly sent these through these instructions on installing Debian on the 3310A. I need to send a special thanks to Stefan, as I receive a lot of emails about the 3310 - but I don’t have one, so I can’t really do much: The only edit I’ve done is change out the links to my files on S3. If you find these helpful, or want to suggest an alteration, please leave a comment.

I’ve been using Atheros for quite some time, and I’ve always liked the madwifi drivers. They allowed really easy switching into monitor mode, and decent levels of packet injection. However, since I’m mostly in an office now, instead of writing web apps in cafes and trying to score free internet, I don’t really need anything fancy. My gentoo stage 1 (3?) days are over. I use Ubuntu, because I’m lazy, and it mostly works.

I’ve noticed my django-tagging install has been giving a lot of empty entries when doing a lookup on a tag. Tonight I finally got around to looking at what was causing this. This is surely not the best way to do this, but at 12:00am on a weekday, well, I shouldn’t be doing it in the first place… I first wanted to see what type of content was generating the error:

For this you’ll need: an Arduino, an LED, a USB cable, and the Arduino software. Get the LED, and plug it in to your Arduino. Plug in the long end to pin 13, plug the short end to the GND. Plug in the Arduino into your laptop. Go to Tools->Serial Port. Choose the USB port that appears. Take the code from the BlinkingLED tutorial and paste it in to the arduino like so:

I’ve received this error a few times when working with pytz: Error reading file '/usr/share/xml/iso-codes/iso_3166.xml' In short, install the ‘iso-codes’ package in Ubuntu/Debian. I’m sure this is covered in the manual that I didn’t read, but I’m sure others didn’t read it too. apt-get install iso-codes

After writing about compiling a new kernel for the Vortex86DX, I’ve had quite a few people email me asking how I installed Debian in the first place. The installation is actually quite straightforward, but it involved several quirky techniques. After doing another install I decided to keep track of the process of installing Debian 5.0 on my eBox-3300. The following guide assumes a few things. First, you are currently using Linux and a debian variety (although instructions could be altered if using Windows). Second, your USB shows up as /dev/sdb. Third, your eBox-3300 has the HDD set in Native mode. Forth, you are patient.

I’ve hit this problem a few times, and figured I’d leave a note for myself how to fix it. Ubuntu 8.04 seems to hiccup sometimes (on a VPS) for generating the correct locales. In particular, I get this error, a lot: perl: warning: Setting locale failed. perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings: LANGUAGE = (unset), LC_ALL = (unset), LANG = "en_US.UTF-8" are supported and installed on your system. perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C"). Normally I just do ‘dpkg-reconfigure locales’, but with 8.04, this doesn’t seem to do squat. The solution is to edit the /var/lib/locales/supported.d/local file, and insert the correct locales (it will …

After restoring databases from one server to another I sometimes get this error on Ubuntu or Debian: error: 'Access denied for user 'debian-sys-maint'@'localhost' (using password: YES)' This makes a lot of sense, and the solution is pretty simple. If you look in: cat /etc/mysql/debian.cnf You’ll see the defaults for your system. Copy the password listed there, and open a connection to MySQL as root (or some other user). Next, enter this (lets say your password specified in debian.cnf was ‘abracadabra’:

I like ESX. I like Linux. It is absurdly easy to configure Linux as an NFS server and mount it in ESXIi). Installed NFS I currently use Ubuntu Server for my home lab, but the process is basically the same for Red Hat and derivatives. sudo apt-get install nfs-common sudo apt-get install nfs-kernel-server Next, configure NFS so it can server your local LAN. Normally you would list only specific servers, but, well, we’re being cheap and dirty today. Open /etc/exports in VI or your editor of choice.