The AMD PIC, rebranded as the decTOP, is now actually available for purchase and confirmed to work with Linux. For $99, you get an 8 Watt, fanless, 366 MHz AMD Geode based PC with a 10GB disk and 128MB of memory (both upgradeable), along with a keyboard, mouse, and ethernet adapter. This guide walks through the [X]ubuntu installation process.

read more | digg story

This is a new publication. These guys did an awesome job. Content is great for beginners. Just need to get some more hardcore linux info. But again, this is Ubuntu.

The Ubuntu magazine Full Circle Magazine have released their second issue.

read more | digg story

Here is a how to use your Cingular Blackjack 3G phone as a bluetooth DUN modem on a Lenovo X41 tablet pc running Ubuntu Edgy. Since this is wireless, this will allow you to charge your phone at the same time as opposed to using the usb cable for a modem. We all know how long the batteries last on this phone!

Notes:
After I did this setup when I reboot I sometimes get an SDP server error. Need to investigate this. After my first time connecting, I had a problem getting an IP address via wifi.

You can also make a quick script to do this procedure and put it on your desktop as a link.

Make sure your bluetooth is enabled on your laptop (or desktop)
Make sure the USB connection on the phone is set to Active Sync.
Turn on internet sharing BT PAN on the Blackjack
Enter your bt phone mac address where the X’s are below. XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX

In a terminal run:

$ killall dhcpcd /*didn’t seem to do anything - I think this is where I had the wifi ip problem*/

$ pand -K /*didn’t seem to do anything*/

$ sudo modprobe bnep

$ hcitool scan

Scanning …
XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX SGH-i60 #this is your phone bt mac address and bt id

$ sudo pand –role PANU –service NAP –connect XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX –nodetach

pand[18984]: Bluetooth PAN daemon version 3.7
pand[18984]: Connecting to XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
pand[18984]: bnep0 connected

$ sudo pand –role PANU –service NAP –connect 00:18:AF:4B:2C:44 –nodetach

pand[19011]: Bluetooth PAN daemon version 3.7
pand[19011]: Connecting to XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
pand[19011]: bnep0 connected

$ sudo dhclient bnep0
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.4
Copyright 2004-2006 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/

Listening on LPF/bnep0/00:0e:9b:dd:59:c8
Sending on LPF/bnep0/00:0e:9b:dd:59:c8
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on bnep0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 6
DHCPOFFER from 192.168.0.1
DHCPREQUEST on bnep0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPACK from 192.168.0.1
bound to 192.168.0.68 — renewal in 128459 seconds.

$ ping www.google.com
PING www.l.google.com (216.239.37.99) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from va-in-f99.google.com (216.239.37.99): icmp_seq=1 ttl=239 time=153 ms
64 bytes from va-in-f99.google.com (216.239.37.99): icmp_seq=2 ttl=240 time=183 ms
64 bytes from va-in-f99.google.com (216.239.37.99): icmp_seq=3 ttl=240 time=149 ms

— www.l.google.com ping statistics —
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 2000ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 149.729/162.114/183.031/14.877 ms

If you need to disconnect all you need to do is “disconnect” the BT PAN on the Cingular Blackjack and when you want to reconnect run

$ sudo pand –role PANU –service NAP –connect XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX –nodetach

$ sudo dhclient bnep0

..and you are back online

OK. Here’s my issue. I needed to setup my HP6210 all in one printer, fax, scanner. So, here I go thinking that I can get this working in 20 minutes or so. Well this 20 minutes turned into a few hours. Here’s my story.

I ran the typical google search checking to see if anyone has this working. I ran across a couple (here is the link)users who said they had this working using hplip, xsane and sane-backens. Well I downloaded hplip from here I untarred it (I probably should have used the autoinstalled — but I like to compile myself!!), cd’d into the new folder, ran ./configure, make….and this is when the problems started. I could not run make. So, what do I do now? I had to actually check the instructions on the download page. I did the manual version so I had to run this for Ubuntu Edgy 6.10:

$sudo apt-get install build-essential python2.4-dev python2.4-qt3 libcupsys2-dev libsnmp9-dev libjpeg62-dev lsb libtool automake1.9 libusb-d

This seemed o.k. Now I did the following (extract the hplip files)

$tar xvfz hplip-1.7.1.tar.gz

$cd hplip-1.7.1

For 32 bit distro users (most users will use this command):

./configure –prefix=/usr

This is where the problem lies. I am on a different pc so I don’t have the exact output of the error but I can’t compile executables. But, here is what I remember from teh erors:

‘checking for C compiler default output file name… configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables’

I checked the config.log and here is an error:

/usr/bin/ld: ctr1.o: No such file: No such file or directory
configure: failed program was:

| /* confdefs.h. */

I searched for a fix for this by making sure gcc g++ compilers were installed and it looked o.k. I tried

$sudo apt-get install build-essential # nope

$export CC=gcc # nope

$sudo apt-get install

$sudo apt-get install libc6 licbc6-dev gcc ++

So, I went to the Ubuntu forums and found that someone had fixed it by:

sudo apt-get -f install # outputs a ton of files (this should have been a clue)

sudo apt-get remove libc6

Well, I did this, the output was a lot of files again and it asked me to type in “yes, do what I say” and this should have been another clue. So, the packages started disappearring and the screen went black. Uh oh! Now, it is frozen. When I reboot, I get a prompt to login and it won’t accept either the root or myuser password. So, next step is to stick in the Ubuntu Edgy CD so I can get to a terminal. What I did was add users with passwords, along with setting the root password and setup a static IP so I could get ssh access. Once I logged in via ssh I knew there was a problem. No bash! Here is where I am. More information to come….

I need to try out this site and see how it works on my othe pc. I am going to back that one up first!

http://www.converttolinux.com/printer.html

To be continued.

Well, I’m back. It is difficult to say this but I had to reinstall Ubuntu Edgy to get it back in shape. I guess I could have spent twenty more hours trying to get it back up and running but my free time these days is very slim so I decided to bite the bullet and reinstall. This was hard to do because I hate giving in. I was conquered!! Oh well, hope someone doesn’t run into the same situation as me and if they do I hope they get it working again.