64 Bit Jungle

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I love the fact that a huge amount of the applications I regularly use are available via the package manager, but sometimes, I like to install applications myself. Azureus is one such application - I wanted to install the latest x64 version, and utilise the x64 JRE I had installed for the x64 Eclipse IDE. Of course, it can easily be installed by running

sudo apt-get install azureus

(in Ubuntu) and everything is done automatically. But, this is how I installed it.

I had already installed x64 JRE (see 64 Bit Eclipse: Linux Installation, including PDT, WTP (WST), ATF, and MySQL (SQL Explorer Plugin)), but for the benefit of those who haven’t, don’t want to read that particular article, or just can’t be arsed scanning through it, here’s the procedure again (skip to —END x64 JRE INSTALL— if you don’t want to read this part!)

The 64 Bit JRE can be downloaded here (or use the direct link to the bin file). After the file downloaded to my desktop, I opened up a new Terminal Window (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal), traversed to the directory I wanted to install it into, moved the file, made it executable, and ran it to install:

cd /usr/java
sudo mkdir 64
cd 64
sudo mv ~/Desktop/jdk-6u5-linux-x64.bin /usr/java/64/
sudo chmod a+x jdk-6u5-linux-x64.bin
sudo ./jdk-6u5-linux-x64.bin

If the “java” directory doesn’t exist by the way, it needs to be created first:

sudo mkdir /usr/java

Anyway, listing the directory

ls

should return

jre1.6.0_05

which is the directory containing the necessary Java binaries.

—END x64 JRE INSTALL—

The 64 Bit version of Azureus (currently v3.5.0.2) can be downloaded here. Once the archive had downloaded to my desktop, I unpacked it:

cd ~/Desktop
tar -xjvf Azureus_3.0.5.2_linux-x86_64.tar.bz2

As usual, I like to put applications (which don’t need compiling and installing) into /opt

sudo mv azureus /opt

Within the /opt/azureus folder, is a shell script for running the Azureus client called, funnily enough, azureus. However, to get it working with the 64 Bit JRE I had installed, I had to make a couple of minor adjustments to the script:

cd /opt/azureus
gksu gedit azureus

Line 5 contains a variable for the Java program directory:

JAVA_PROGRAM_DIR=""

so, I simply inserted the path to the JRE bin directory:

JAVA_PROGRAM_DIR="/usr/java/64/jre1.6.0_05/bin/"

saved the script, and closed the editor. I can now run the Azureus client by running this script:

/opt/azureus/azureus

Alternatively, it can be run from the Applications menu by creating an entry pointing to /opt/azureus/azureus - open System -> Preferences -> Main Menu, highlight “Internet”, and click “New Item”. Enter “Azureus” for the name, /opt/azureus/azureus for the Command, and change the icon to the Azureus logo by clicking on the Icon, and browsing to /opt/azureus/azureus, which will automatically list the images in the folder to choose from.

written by Hodge \\ tags: 64 bit, Azureus, BitTorrent, JRE

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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OK, this is a bit of a cheeky post, since I’m merely extending a previous post “Conky on Ubuntu 64 Bit - .conkyrc” - or elaborating on it - to clarify setting up .conkyrc for Dual Core Processors - specifically for my AMD Turion 64 X2. I’ve had a few requests specifically about this, so here goes…

Now, the part of my .conkyrc file that deals with my Dual Core looks like this:

${color #42AE4A}Usage (Avg):${color #42AE4A} ${freq_dyn_g}Ghz ${color lightgrey}${cpu cpu0}% ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${cpubar cpu0 5,80}
${color #42AE4A}Usage (Core 1):${color #42AE4A} ${freq_dyn_g cpu1}Ghz ${color lightgrey}${cpu cpu1}% ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${cpubar cpu1 5,80}
${color #42AE4A}Usage (Core 2):${color #42AE4A} ${freq_dyn_g cpu2}Ghz ${color lightgrey}${cpu cpu2}% ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${cpubar cpu2 5,80}
${color #42AE4A}Average
${cpugraph cpu0 42AE4A eeeeee}
${color #42AE4A}Core 1 $alignr Core 2
${color #42AE4A}${cpugraph cpu1 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee} ${color #42AE4A} $alignr${color #42AE4A}${cpugraph cpu2 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee}
${color #42AE4A}Processes:${color lightgrey} $processes ${color #42AE4A}Run:${color lightgrey} $running_processes ${color #42AE4A}CPU Temp:${color lightgrey} ${execi 1100 cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature | grep -o “[0-9]* C”}
${color #42AE4A}Core 1 Temp: ${color lightgrey}${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 ‘Core0′ | cut -c13-16 | sed ‘/^$/d’} C ${color #42AE4A}Core 2 Temp: ${color lightgrey}${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 ‘Core1′ | cut -c13-16 | sed ‘/^$/d’} C


This outputs the following to Conky:

Stripping out all the formatting, and colouring gives this:

Usage (Avg): ${freq_dyn_g}Ghz ${cpu cpu0}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu0 5,80}
Usage (Core 1): ${freq_dyn_g cpu1}Ghz ${cpu cpu1}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu1 5,80}
Usage (Core 2): ${freq_dyn_g cpu2}Ghz ${cpu cpu2}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu2 5,80}
Average
${cpugraph cpu0 42AE4A eeeeee}
Core 1 $alignr Core 2
${cpugraph cpu1 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee} $alignr${cpugraph cpu2 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee}
Processes: $processes Run: $running_processes CPU Temp: ${execi 1100 cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature | grep -o “[0-9]* C”}
Core 1 Temp: ${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 ‘Core0′ | cut -c13-16 | sed ‘/^$/d’} C Core 2 Temp: ${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 ‘Core1′ | cut -c13-16 | sed ‘/^$/d’} C


Now the walk through. The first line, Usage (Avg): ${freq_dyn_g}Ghz ${cpu cpu0}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu0 5,80} gives the Average clock speed usage for both cores - ${freq_dyn_g} with no parameters, will output the current clock speed usage for the CPU as a whole. Passing cpu0 as a parameter to ${cpu} will output the overall CPU % used, and similarly, passing cpu0 to ${cpubar} will draw the overall % used graph (the parameters 5,80 are just for the height and width.

Now, by passing cpu1 or cpu2 to ${freq_dny_g}, ${cpu} and ${cpubar} Conky will output the same data but for each individual core. This can be extended by passing cpuN where N is the core number, for quad core etc. this could be cpu3 cpu4. So, the first three lines:

Usage (Avg): ${freq_dyn_g}Ghz ${cpu cpu0}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu0 5,80}
Usage (Core 1): ${freq_dyn_g cpu1}Ghz ${cpu cpu1}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu1 5,80}
Usage (Core 2): ${freq_dyn_g cpu2}Ghz ${cpu cpu2}% ${alignr}${cpubar cpu2 5,80}


Outputs:

The next lines of the file deal with throughput/usage graphs, ${cpugraph cpu0 42AE4A eeeeee} being the average for the CPU as a whole, since cpu0 is passed as a parameter. 42AE4A and eeeeee are just colour parameters to create a gradient overlay on the graph. As before, passing cpu1 and cpu2 will draw the graphs for the individual cores. The additional parameters, 25,120 are again just height and width parameters.

So, the lines

Average
${cpugraph cpu0 42AE4A eeeeee}
Core 1 $alignr Core 2
${cpugraph cpu1 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee} $alignr${cpugraph cpu2 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee}


Will output:

Finally, I have a bunch of other data output, such as total processes, processes running, and CPU temperature. The first line outputs general information about the CPU as a whole:

Processes: $processes Run: $running_processes CPU Temp: ${execi 1100 cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature | grep -o "[0-9]* C”}


$processes outputs the total number of processes, while $running_processes outputs the number of currently running processes on the CPU. To output the overall temperature, I had to call the execi function, and do some tweaking of the output to get the number, so ${execi 1100 cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature | grep -o “[0-9]* C”} basically outputs /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature, pipes the output through grep which searches for the regular expression ‘[0-9]* C’ (which matches a string of numbers followed by a space followed by an upper-case C), and thus outputs just the temperature value - e.g. “45 C”.

To output the temperature of each Core, I once again run the execi function on a couple of piped shell commands, and pipe the output through other shell commands to get the number I want:

Core 1 Temp: ${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 'Core0' | cut -c13-16 | sed '/^$/d'} C Core 2 Temp: ${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 'Core1' | cut -c13-16 | sed '/^$/d'} C


Basically what is happening here is I’m running the shell command sensors, piping to grep to search for the string “Core0“, piing this output to cut to trim it, and finally editing out some of the crap I don’t want by piping to sed. This is just repeated for Core1. You may need to customise the output from sensors, by greping, cutting and seding different stuff - experiment by opening a terminal, and running sensors, then just pipe it through the grep, cut, and sed commands until you get the data you want.

So, the final lines together:

Processes: $processes Run: $running_processes CPU Temp: ${execi 1100 cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature | grep -o "[0-9]* C”}
Core 1 Temp: ${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 ‘Core0′ | cut -c13-16 | sed ‘/^$/d’} C Core 2 Temp: ${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 ‘Core1′ | cut -c13-16 | sed ‘/^$/d’} C


Output:

Of course, this should work on any Linux distro with Conky installed.

Hope that helps someone.

written by Hodge \\ tags: 64 bit, AMD, Conky, conkyrc, Dual Core, Ubuntu

(1 votes, average: 2 out of 5)

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I recently installed Conky, which is a highly configurable and “light weight system monitor”. As with many packages, it’s available via the Ubuntu Repositories:

sudo apt-get install conky

The default installation outputs some pretty useful information about the system - CPU usage, RAM/Swap usage, HD IO, HDD space and so on, and there are also some awesome scripts available to pull in other information to the display. The data monitored by Conky is controlled by the .conkyrc file locate in the user Home directory ~/.conkyrc. Opening and editing, or creating this file if it doesn’t exist (Applications -> Accessories -> Text Editor then Save As .conkyrc in the home directory), .conkyrc allows full control of how Conky gathers and displays information. The first section of the file, controls how the physical aspects of Conky is handled - the window size, transparency, position on the desctop etc., and the second part of the file takes a number of variables - both built in to Conky (which gather information such as RAM usage, etc.), and via exec, execi and texeci commands.

The Conky website has a great references on the configuration settings, available variables, and the man page.

I’ve also recently written a post which deals specifically with setting up Dual Core processors - Conky: Dual Core Processors in .conkyrc

As previously mentioned, in addition to Conky’s built in variables, it is possible to execute external shell commands, and even Perl/Python etc. scripts, and have the output sent to Conky for processing. I currently have two scripts installed, both obtained from Ubuntu Forums:

Conky Gmail Revisited, written by lvleph, is a Perl script, which logs into your Gmail account, and checks for new mail periodically (the interval of which is actually controlled via the .conkyrc). The Perl script is easy to download and use. Once I saved the script to ~/ConkyScripts/gmail/gmail.pl I just had to modify the script to enter my Gmail username and password, and make it executable

cd ~/ConkyScripts/gmail/
sudo chmod a+x gmail.pl

I could then call the script from my .conkyrc:

You have ${texeci 360 perl ~/ConkyScripts/gmail/gmail.pl n} new gmail(s).

texeci is a Conky command, to which I passed the parameters 360 (an interval in seconds which the script should run), and the shell command to execute - in this case, perl ~/ConkyScripts/gmail/gmail.pl n (the n is actually a parameter passed to the gmail.pl script!). The original forum post has a great list of installation instructions, thanks to lvleph.

I also added

${execi 360 perl ~/ConkyScripts/gmail/gmail.pl s}

to .conkyrc which calls the script again, but with “s” as the parameter, to output any new email subjects to Conky.

Conky Weather Revisited V2, also written by lvleph, grabs local weather information. It even comes with its own Weather Font! Again, it’s easy to download and incorporate into the .conkyrc file (I recommend the version from Page 3 of the forum thread - just remember to download the font from the front page). Again, I saved this to its own directory ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl and it was just a matter of calling the script from the .conkyrc as before. Running

./weather.pl

in a terminal window outputs the possible parameters which can be passed to the script - the most important being the area code/city code - in my case THXX0027, for Mae Hongson. Again, the original forum post has a great list of installation instructions, thanks to lvleph.

I’ve also recently written a Perl script, which allows BOINC data to be viewed via Conky. See my recent post on BOINC and SETI@Home with Conky, on Ubuntu.

So, here’s my full .conkyrc file, for anyone who’s interested, which outputs the image above - try and tested on an Acer Aspire 5052, with AMD Turion 64 X2 (Dual Core) Processor:

# set to yes if you want Conky to be forked in the background
background no
cpu_avg_samples 2
net_avg_samples 2
out_to_console no
# Use Xft?
use_xft yes
# Xft font when Xft is enabled
xftfont Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:size=8
# Text alpha when using Xft
xftalpha 0.8
on_bottom yes
# Update interval in seconds
update_interval 1
# Create own window instead of using desktop (required in nautilus)
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_type override
# Use double buffering (reduces flicker, may not work for everyone)
double_buffer yes
# Minimum size of text area
minimum_size 260 5
maximum_width 260
# Draw shades?
draw_shades no
# Draw outlines?
draw_outline no
# Draw borders around text
draw_borders no
# Stippled borders?
stippled_borders no
# border margins
border_margin 4
# border width
border_width 1
# Default colors and also border colors
default_color white
default_shade_color white
default_outline_color white
# Text alignment, other possible values are commented
gap_x 15
gap_y 30
alignment top_right
# Gap between borders of screen and text
# Add spaces to keep things from moving about? This only affects certain objects.
use_spacer no
# Subtract file system buffers from used memory?
no_buffers yes
# set to yes if you want all text to be in uppercase
uppercase no
# boinc (seti) dir
seti_dir /usr/lib/boinc-app-seti/setiathome_enhanced
TEXT
${color #42AE4A}$sysname $kernel $machine - $nodename
${color #42AE4A}Uptime:${color lightgrey} $uptime ${color #42AE4A} Load:${color lightgrey} $loadavg
${color lightgrey}${hr}
${color #42AE4A}Usage (Avg):${color #42AE4A} ${freq_dyn_g}Ghz ${color lightgrey}${cpu cpu0}% ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${cpubar cpu0 5,80}
${color #42AE4A}Usage (Core 1):${color #42AE4A} ${freq_dyn_g cpu1}Ghz ${color lightgrey}${cpu cpu1}% ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${cpubar cpu1 5,80}
${color #42AE4A}Usage (Core 2):${color #42AE4A} ${freq_dyn_g cpu2}Ghz ${color lightgrey}${cpu cpu2}% ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${cpubar cpu2 5,80}
${color #42AE4A}Average
${cpugraph cpu0 42AE4A eeeeee}
${color #42AE4A}Core 1 $alignr Core 2
${color #42AE4A}${cpugraph cpu1 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee} ${color #42AE4A} $alignr${color #42AE4A}${cpugraph cpu2 25,120 42AE4A eeeeee}
${color #42AE4A}Processes:${color lightgrey} $processes ${color #42AE4A}Run:${color lightgrey} $running_processes ${color #42AE4A}CPU Temp:${color lightgrey} ${execi 1100 cat /proc/acpi/thermal_zone/THRM/temperature | grep 'temperature:' | sed -e 's/temperature: //'}
${color #42AE4A}Core 1 Temp: ${color lightgrey}${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 'Core0' | cut -c13-16 | sed '/^$/d'} C ${color #42AE4A}Core 2 Temp: ${color lightgrey}${execi 8 sensors | grep -A 1 'Core1' | cut -c13-16 | sed '/^$/d'} C
${color lightgrey}${hr}
${color #42AE4A}CPU Usage PID CPU% MEM%
${color lightgrey} ${top name 1} ${top pid 1} ${top cpu 1} ${top mem 1}
${color #42AE4A} ${top name 2} ${top pid 2} ${top cpu 2} ${top mem 2}
${color #42AE4A} ${top name 3} ${top pid 3} ${top cpu 3} ${top mem 3}
${color #42AE4A}Mem Usage
${color lightgrey} ${top_mem name 1} ${top_mem pid 1} ${top_mem cpu 1} ${top_mem mem 1}
${color #42AE4A} ${top_mem name 2} ${top_mem pid 2} ${top_mem cpu 2} ${top_mem mem 2}
${color #42AE4A} ${top_mem name 3} ${top_mem pid 3} ${top_mem cpu 3} ${top_mem mem 3}
${color lightgrey}${hr}
${color #42AE4A}RAM:${color lightgrey} $mem/$memmax ($memperc%) ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${membar 5,100}
${color #42AE4A}SWAP:${color lightgrey} $swap/$swapmax ($swapperc%) ${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${swapbar 5,100}
${color #42AE4A}HD IO: ${color lightgrey}${diskio}
${color #42AE4A}${diskiograph 42AE4A eeeeee}
${color #42AE4A}Hard Disk Space:
${color #42AE4A} Root ${color lightgrey}${fs_used /}/${fs_size /}${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${fs_bar 5,120 /}
${color #42AE4A} Win ${color lightgrey}${fs_used /media/hda1}/${fs_size /media/hda1}${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${fs_bar 5,120 /media/hda1}
${color #42AE4A} Data ${color lightgrey}${fs_used /media/hda5}/${fs_size /media/hda5}${alignr}${color #42AE4A}${fs_bar 5,120 /media/hda5}
${color lightgrey}${hr}
${color #42AE4A}Network: ${color lightgrey}${addr eth0}
${color #42AE4A}Down:${color lightgrey} ${downspeed eth0} k/s $alignr${color #42AE4A} Up:${color lightgrey} ${upspeed eth0} k/s
${color #42AE4A}${downspeedgraph eth0 27,120 42AE4A eeeeee 180} $alignr${color #42AE4A}${upspeedgraph eth0 27,120 42AE4A eeeeee 25}
${color lightgrey}${totaldown eth0} $alignr${color lightgrey}${totalup eth0}
${color #42AE4A}Power: ${color lightgrey}${execi 2 acpi | sed -e 's/ .*: //'}
${color #42AE4A}You have ${color lightgrey}${texeci 360 perl ~/ConkyScripts/gmail/gmail.pl n} ${color #42AE4A}new gmail(s).
${color lightgrey}${execi 360 perl ~/ConkyScripts/gmail/gmail.pl s}
${color #42AE4A}$font${alignc}Mae Hongson Weather
${color #42AE4A}$font${alignc}Today
${alignc}${voffset -5}${color lightgrey}${font weather:size=30}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c cp}${font}$color${voffset -15}${offset 10}${color lightgrey}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c c}
${voffset 5}${color #42AE4A}$font${alignc}5 Day Forcast
${voffset -5}${font weather:size=30}${alignc}${offset -45}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 1p}${offset 25}${color orange}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 2p}${offset 25}${color cyan}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 3p}${offset 24}${color green}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 4p}${offset 23}${color red}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 5p}${font}$color
${alignc}${offset -15}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 1}${offset 10}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 2}${offset 10}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 3}${offset 10}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 4}${offset 10}${execi 3600 perl ~/ConkyScripts/weather/weather.pl THXX0027 c 5}


The “Post your .conkyrc files w/ screenshots” thread over at Ubuntu Forums has many other .conkyrc examples to peruse.

written by Hodge \\ tags: 64 bit, Conky, conkyrc, Ubuntu

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So, I have a state of the art Notebook (well, almost state of the art), with a Duel Core 64 Bit AMD Processor, 2Gb RAM, and a 64 Bit Operating System (Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon) - but, whatever… because I’ve found a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k Emulator! What better use for such a system than to play classic 8 Bit games from my childhood?! Yes, I could drag the old 48k machine along with the Dixons tape deck from my parents’ attic, and hook it up to the TV - but that would involve a trip half way around the world. I can’t afford that, so instead, I ran

sudo apt-get install spectemu-common spectemu-x11 spectrum-roms

which installed the Spectemu (xspect) command line Speccy Emulator, along with a few Speccy ROMs. Searching for some of my old favourite games (Skool Daze, Back to Skool, Lords of Chaos, Spy Hunter, Saboteur, Elite - also see the Oolite post), led me to World of Spectrum, where I downloaded a bunch of TAP tape image files, and dumped them in ~/Speccy

Spectemu is CLI, so from a terminal window, I ran
cd ~/Speccy

and extracted the games I’d just downloaded

tar -zxvf SkoolDaze.tap.zip

then ran the Emulator itself

xspect

which brought up the age old “© 1982 Sinclair Research Ltd” Speccy interface in a new window. In this window, I had to press Enter, and run

Load ""

by pressing the Speccy shortcut “j” followed by two double quotes “” which outputs Load “”, followed by Enter. Pressing Ctrl+p outputs a prompt back in the Terminal window to enter the tape file path, which was simply

SKOOLDAZ.TAP

followed by return. Back in the Speccy window, Skool Daze began loading. And loading… and loading… It’s as if I was back in the ’80s - a few minutes later, the game had loaded to memory (without crashing, or needing to adjust the volume of the tape player etc.!), and I could enjoy a blast from the past…

Quick loading of tapes is also possible. Before typing Load “” simply press Ctrl+y in the Speccy window, and the Terminal window reports “Quick Load on” (it can also be switched off with Ctrl+y). After entering Load “” follow the same procedure of entering the .TAP file name, and the game loads into memory much faster, bypassing the Speccy ROM’s load routine. Nice!

To quit - just press “Ctrl+c” in the Speccy window. More on the Speccy commands can be found at http://www.inf.bme.hu/~mszeredi/spectemu/README

written by Hodge \\ tags: 64 bit, Games, Sinclair, Ubuntu, ZX Spectrum 48k

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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

written by Hodge \\ tags: 43xx, 5052, 64 bit, Acer Aspire, Broadcom, broadcom 4318, driver, drivers, Linux, Ubuntu, Wireless

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A couple of weeks ago, I decided to shrink my windozzze partition, and give the extra space to Ubuntu. I’ve been using Linux on and off for some years now, so I have a bunch of commands and methods stored away in my memory, and as such, I remembered that I probably wouldn’t be able to repartition my drive while in Linux, and while one of the partitions (i.e. my root partition) was mounted - and, of course, if I unmounted my root partition, I wouldn’t be able to use any applications located there to execute the repartition… Minor dilema.Thankfully, Ubuntu has a LiveCD, which, as well as being the installation CD, also has the OS loaded so it can be booted and tested without even installing it on the computer! Handy, eh?

So, I booted into the LiveCD and once it had loaded, was able to run the Partition Editor (System -> Administration -> Partition Editor) application. From here, I switched the Swap off (I was also about to install 2Gb RAM, and thus wanted to shrink my Swap file from 2Gb to 1Gb), resized my Windozzze, Swap and Ubuntu root / partition, and made a cup of tea (milk, no sugar - I’m English, you see).

I finished my brew around the same time Ubuntu finished its little task of repartitioning (I like to drink my tea slowly), and rebooted the system (without the LiveCD), and everything seemed to work well - I had a larger Linux partition, a smaller Windozzze partition, and a smaller Swap file… fantastic - no errors, and no data loss! Then I started running applications - the RAM filled up, and the computer ground to a halt… So, the Swap wasn’t working after all. Bugger.

Opening /etc/fstab
more /etc/fstab
revealed that the Swap is supposed to automount at boot time, so something was obviously amiss, since the Swap clearly wasn’t mounted! I ran
mkswap /dev/hda6
(my Swap partition), and found the problem - the UUID for the partition was different, doh! Changed the UUID for /dev/hda6 in fstab
gksu gedit /etc/fstab
saved, rebooted, and all the lights came on.

Ubuntu rules!

written by Hodge \\ tags: 5052, 64 bit, acer, aspire, partition, repartition, Ubuntu, Windows

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Why 64 Bit Jungle? Well, I live in the Mountainous Jungle of Northern Thailand, near the Burmese Border, and I’ve always been interested in Computer Technology. I’m currently using an AMD 64 Bit Acer Aspire 5052 Laptop to work, and play. I’ve been meaning to set up a blog for some time now, and the name “64bitjungle” came to me during a brief period of meditation… It seemed as though my mind was trying to tell me something, even though I was trying to meditate! So I set up this blog…

Unfortunately, the blog name isn’t really future proof, so when 64 bits become 128 bits…

written by Hodge \\ tags: 5052, 64 bit, acer, aspire, jungle