(2 votes, average: 4 out of 5) 
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A post with no absolutely substance, no information, no point, and here simply because it’ll be another 4 years until I can do this again 
Actually, I’ve already posted twice today. Bollocks.
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5) Loading ...
Living in the Jungle, I’m concerned about environmental issues, and try to live my life as Green as possible. Unfortunately, I witness deforestation, slash and burn, littering, and all sorts of non-green activities on an all too regular basis. So, I was incredibly impressed when a friend pointed out ThinkHost to me. Yes, they’re another web hosting company along with the other thousands out there, but by far the best thing about these guys, is that they run on 100% Renewable Energy - Wind and Solar powered Linux Web Servers… How unbelievably cool is that?!? Very, I think anyway. They also plant a new tree with every customer sign up, which makes the Hippy in me very happy (I like to please the Hippy and the Geek). In fact, I think the only thing that would make them even cooler, is if their servers were Ubuntu web servers! They currently have a great $7.95/month hosting plan, offering:
along with PHP5 support, unlimited POP3 email accounts, Linux/Apache setup, software packages and so on and so forth.
I’ve no intention of putting distracting banners regularly in my posts - in fact, not at all after this one - but I’m pretty damn impressed with these guys, so they deserve a big ass, one-off, in-post banner:
They also have a pretty impressive affiliate program, which is a cool way to spread the Green word!
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Update 12/04/08: I have now successfully installed the x64 version of Eclipse - see 64 Bit Eclipse: Linux Installation, including PDT, WTP (WST), ATF, and MySQL (SQL Explorer Plugin) for a step by step guide, or continue reading this article if you want to install the 32 bit version.
32 Bit installation
I went through several different methods of installing the Eclipse IDE on my Ubuntu system. I tried the obvious first - installing via the Synaptic Package Manager, but found it a bit of a pain to install any plugin packages I downloaded (I also use WST and SqlExplorer in addition to PDT). So, I uninstalled, then tried the 64 Bit version of the SDK (which at the time was pretty buggy, and unstable), in the hope that I’d be able to plug in a 64 Bit version of the PDT, which I soon found doesn’t exist yet! So, I finally settled for installing the 32 Bit version of Eclipse PDT, which enabled me to install the plugins too.
In order to install and run this successfully, I first downloaded the 32 Bit Java Runtime Environment installer “Linux (self-extracting file)” from http://www.java.com/en/download/linux_manual.jsp (or direct link to the file), and saved the jre-6u3-linux-i586.bin to my desktop.
Once the file downloaded, I opened up a Terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal), and typed
cd /usr/java
(if the java directory doesn’t exist, it need to be created:
sudo mkdir /usr/java
cd /usr/java
I also wanted a 64 bit version of the JRE installing, so within the /usr/java directory, created two more sub directories:
sudo mkdir 32
sudo mkdir 64
then copied the newly downloaded JRE installation file from the desktop to the /usr/java/32 directory, and made the file executable:
cd 32
sudo mv ~/Desktop/jre-6u3-linux-i586.bin /usr/java/32/jre-6u3-linux-i586.bin
sudo chmod a+x jre-6u3-linux-i586.bin
then execute the binary:
sudo ./jre-6u3-linux-i586.bin
Accept the terms, and so on and so forth… When it says “Done”, it’s, well, done!
ls
should return:
jre1.6.0_03
Note: If you download a newer version of JRE, then you’ll need to change the above commands containing “jre-6u3-linux-i586.bin” to “jre-6u<version>-linux-i586.bin” where <version> is 3, 4, 5 etc.!
Now for Eclipse. I downloaded the latest version from http://download.eclipse.org/tools/pdt/downloads/ (the current stable version is R20080103) - I click on the link for the latest release, and downloaded the pdt-all-in-one-R20080103-linux-gtk.tar.gz file to the desktop. Once it finished, I went back to the terminal, and entered the /opt directory, moved the Eclipse package to the /opt directory, and extracted the new files:
cd /opt
sudo mv ~/Desktop/pdt-all-in-one-R20080103-linux-gtk.tar.gz /opt
sudo tar -zxvf pdt-all-in-one-R20080103-linux-gtk.tar.gz
This extracts the Eclipse IDE into a directory called, oddly enough, “eclipse”. However, I’m experimenting with the 64 bit version too, so I changed the directory name to eclipse32:
sudo mv eclipse eclipse32
As it was, Eclipse wouldn’t run, since it doesn’t know where to find the JRE I’d just installed, so, I had to create a small shell script in order for it to run correctly:
cd eclipse32
gksu gedit eclipse.sh
This opened up a text editor, with a blank file called “eclipse.sh”. The shell script is:
#!/bin/bash
PATH=/usr/java/32/jre1.6.0_03/bin:$PATH
/opt/eclipse32/eclipse
PATH=/usr/java/32/jre1.6.0_03/bin:$PATH should point to the bin directory of the previously installed.
The script also needed to be executable:
sudo chmod 755 eclipse.sh
and I also changed the ownership of all the files and directories to my username:
sudo chown -R username:group *
That was pretty much it - I could run Eclipse by opening a Terminal window and running
cd /opt/eclipse32
./eclipse.sh
which got a little tiresome after the first time, so I created a menu item (System -> Preferences -> Main Menu) which pointed to /opt/eclipse32/eclipse.sh, and even included the png Eclipse logo for the icon 
Any plugins can be downloaded, and extracted into the relevant directories - or, installed by the Eclipse Update Manager.
I’ve recently written a post on “Eclipse PDT and MySQL - SQL Explorer Plugin“, for anyone who needs to set up MySQL connections in Eclipse.
(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5) Loading ...It’s nothing to do with Ubuntu Linux, or the Jungle, but it’s definitely worth a cheeky post on my blog! iwouldntsteal.net have produced a great video to replace the Multinationals’ propaganda which we’re forced to view almost every time we pop a DVD in to watch. The tossers who produce this propaganda, as most of you will be aware, associate downloading and reproducing films etc. with stealing handbags, cars, B&E, and all sorts of unsavory and nefarious criminal acts. As most people know, this is in fact, a big pile of stinking poo. Anyway, check out the movie, and support the Artists, not the Multinationals! Copy this blog entry to your blog if you like - anything to spread the word
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I used to love playing Elite when I was younger - a fantastic intergalactic space simulator, so I was delighted when I stumbled across Oolite, which is based on the classic game, but implements modern graphics! It’s already available via the Synaptic Package Manager (System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager) - just search for “oolite” and select “oolite” and “oolite-data” for installation. Alternatively, it can be installed via the command line, by opening up a terminal window (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and running:
sudo apt-get install oolite oolite-data
The game itself is great fun, and what’s more, there are myriad addons, expansion packs and mods which can be downloaded and installed.
To install the addons in Ubuntu, I had to create the AddOn directory:
cd
mkdir .Oolite
cd .Oolite
mkdir AddOns
Now, any addon-name.oxp directories contained within downloaded expansion packs should be extracted to the new ~/.Oolite/AddOns directory for the Ubuntu version of Oolite to recognise and locate for use in the game.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...I’ve been messing around, tweaking and poking my system in an attempt to optimise, and speed things up a little. Installing 2Gb RAM has helped, but I’ve also been playing trying to speed up my laptop’s boot time. I stumbled across a cool little application, called bootchart:
“boot sequence auditing and chart generator
bootchart allows you to audit the boot sequence of your computer and
generate a pretty chart of the processes run, including how long they
took and how much CPU and I/O they used.The auditing is performed by adding a script to the top of your initramfs
which lives inside is own tiny filesystem during the boot process and
monitors the rest of the system booting”
(description from the Synaptic Package Manager)
So, I installed bootchart
sudo apt-get install bootchart
and rebooted to benchmark the boot time - 44 seconds (bootchart creates a cool png image in /var/log/bootchart each time the computer boots up). Not bad, but surely it could be a little better, right?
Aside from the obvious optimisation tricks of turning off unnecessary services, I’d also heard about readahead, which can be used to cache files to be loaded at boot time. To enable it, all I had to do was create a boot profile, which can be done via Grub at boot time. So, I rebooted again, and when the Grub boot list appeared, created the profile:
First, I highlighted the default boot option - actually it was already highlighted, since it’s what I usually boot into! - and pressed the “e” key. Then I scrolled down to the “kernel” line, and pressed “e” once again, which allows a temporary edit of the Grub boot command line. Moving the cursor to the end of the line, I added ” profile” (notice the space character before the word profile), pressed “Enter”, and booted. It took longer than usual, obviously, since readahead was creating the profile to, well, read ahead on the next, and all subsequent boots.
After my system had fully booted into Gnome, I rebooted, waited, then checked the bootchart log again. 42 seconds…
Oh well - a couple of seconds improvement is better than nothing! Back to the drawing board…
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...There are some great posts in forums and other blogs about getting the Broadcom 43xx Wireless card working in Ubuntu, which really helped me get on the right road to setting mine up (see the end of this post). However, I’m running 64 Bit Ubuntu on my Acer Aspire 5052, so I had a little trouble finding the correct Windozzze drivers to use with ndiswrapper. The drivers can be downloaded from this post, if anyone needs them - Broadcom 43xx Windows 64 Bit drivers.
This is the method I used to get my Wireless up and running, which is a combination of a few different posts:
First, open a terminal window (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal), then run:
lspci | grep Broadcom
You should see something along the lines of:
08:04.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller (rev 02)
If you don’t, stop reading now! If you do, then continue…
Download the drivers and extract them to your Desktop, or wherever you want:
tar -zxvf broadcom-64bit-win-drivers.tar.gz
You should now have two files extracted - bcmwl5.inf and bcmwl564.sys. If your Wireless was recognised by Ubuntu when it was first installed, but is simply not working, then it needs to be blacklisted, so that ndiswrapper can take over. Open the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist file:
gksu gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
I added “blacklist bcm43xx” to the end of the file:
# blacklist bcm43xx wifi driver, and use ndiswrapper instead
blacklist bcm43xx
Now save the file, and reboot. Open a terminal window again, and cd to the directory where the extracted driver files are - e.g.:
cd ~/Desktop/wireless
If ndiswrapper isn’t installed, run the Synaptic Package Manager (Stsyem -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager) and search for “ndiswrapper”. Install ndiswrapper-common and ndiswrapper-utils-x.x (where x is the version number). Go back to the terminal window to install the new driver, and type:
sudo ndiswrapper –i bcmwl5.inf
sudo ndiswrapper –m
Then, edit the /etc/modules file:
gksu gedit /etc/modules
Add:
ndiswrapper
to the bottom, and press “Enter” to add a new line. Save the file, and reboot! The Wireless card should be working, and should be able to connect to a wireless network.
If removal of the driver is required, you can run:
sudo ndiswrapper –e bcmwl5
Then, delete the entry from /etc/modules:
gksu gedit /etc/modules
Delete “ndiswrapper” and save… and un-blacklist the bcm43xx driver in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist:
gksu gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
Delete “blacklist bcm43xx”, save and reboot.
Hope that helps somebody!
References:
Broadcom 4318 Using NdisWrapper, posted by brainwrecked-tech @ ubuntuforums
HOWTO: Broadcom 4318 Wireless Cards, posted by compwiz18 @ ubuntuforums
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There’s a huge Lisu Partyin a village not far from where I live, starting today, and ending on the 24th. There are Lisu from pretty much every Lisu village in North Thailand, who will spend the next couple of days (and nights) dancing and singing. There were hundreds of people this afternoon, in a spectacular display of vibrant colours, and pure silver.
Absolutely stunning!
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...When I first installed, I had no sound. So, I played around with the sound control panel (double click on the speaker in the top right), looked at the drivers (ALSA installed correctly), and eventually found that Ubuntu sees my laptop speakers as “Surround”, and not the default setting of “Front”. So, right clicking on the sound applet in the panel, and choosing Preferences allowed me to change the device and track control to Surround. Likewise, double clicking, and opening up the control panel, made sure that surround was visible, and up at full volume. Sound works.
(2 votes, average: 4.5 out of 5) Loading ...I recently got married, and my Wife is from the Lisu Hill Tribe (originally from Tibet, and have migrated - walked - to Northern Thailand in recent years). We had the ceremony in her village, the Shaman informed the Ancestral and Nature Spirits that we are married, and we’re happy, our families are happy, the village is happy - in fact, everyone is happy. Except for the government.
If we want to be recognised (yes, that’s correct - no “z”) as “legally” married, we have to obtain an anonymous signature, from somebody neither of us have ever met - and what’s more, we have to pay for it! To be fair to the Thai government, there are no costs involved in obtaining the marriage certificate from the Amphur (city council), but there’s a horrible chain of, not surprisingly since the British Government are pretty tight-arsed, non-free bureaucracy from the British side. First, I have to download a document from the British Embassy’s website, which I then have re-type in the exact same format (since they can’t even be bothered to supply an editable document) declaring that I am not currently married, and can legally marry. I then have to take this document in person to the British Embassy in Bangkok (bear in mind that I live in the Jungle of Northern Thailand, and that I absolutely despise Bangkok), and pay someone 3500 baht to sign it. That’s about £50 or $100! For an anonymous signature, that probably takes approximately 2 - 3 seconds. Now, that’s a wage bracket I’d love to be in! Not only that, but I have to wait 24 hours for the dude to sign it! More expense require to stay a night in Bangkok.
When the consul has finally decided that it’s worth his time to sign it (and it should be for 3500 Baht), I have to take the document and get it translated (another 4000 - 5000 baht), and signed again… for another fee.
So, once I’ve paid someone I’ve never met to tell me I can get married, we can finally go to the Amphur and be registered as married. Yay!
My Wife is also pregnant, and due to give birth in a month and I would like to register my Child’s birth with the UK registry office. If He/She is born in the UK, then this would be free. However, He/She will be born here in Thailand, so once again, I have to pay for someone to tap a few keys and click “Add to Database”, followed by “File -> Print” for the UK Birth Certificate. I honestly wouldn’t mind paying reasonable administration fees, but I have to pay 15,000 baht! 15,000!!! That’s £242.52 at today’s rate. Where the hell did they come up with that figure? That’s more than my Wife’s family earn in 6 months - and they work bloody hard every day! Certainly harder than the Consul, with his benefits and Bentleys…
Ironic, since I moved to the Jungle to get away from the expense of living in the UK…
64 Bit Jungle
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