Wednesday, August 5, 2009
GNOME Themes and Root Terminal
With the major problems out of the way, I started to make my lenny box look pretty. I downloaded a few themes and decided on one titled "ClearBloodline."
The install is straightforward: Click System -> Preferences -> Appearance and install a new theme. (You don't even have to unpack the file you downloaded)
I came across two problems - first, the window borders weren't changing. Secondly, the theme wasn't applying to the root terminal.
The first problem is easy: With the new theme installed and selected, click Customize then click on the Window Border tab. Select a different Window Border theme, then click back to the desired theme - the windows should update.
The second problem makes sense in hindsight. I just installed the theme logged in as a user other than root. The root terminal is running as root, and so is still using the default theme. To install this theme under the root account, you have to run the Gnome Appearance Properties as root. To do this, use the command:
gksu gnome-appearance-properties
Then install the theme the same way.
The install is straightforward: Click System -> Preferences -> Appearance and install a new theme. (You don't even have to unpack the file you downloaded)
I came across two problems - first, the window borders weren't changing. Secondly, the theme wasn't applying to the root terminal.
The first problem is easy: With the new theme installed and selected, click Customize then click on the Window Border tab. Select a different Window Border theme, then click back to the desired theme - the windows should update.
The second problem makes sense in hindsight. I just installed the theme logged in as a user other than root. The root terminal is running as root, and so is still using the default theme. To install this theme under the root account, you have to run the Gnome Appearance Properties as root. To do this, use the command:
gksu gnome-appearance-properties
Then install the theme the same way.
Onboard Sound Update
Turns out the on-board sound on the GA-EP45-UD3P mobo works perfectly. I was surprised to hear embedded audio in a webpage that I stumbled upon. I guess I'm so used to that Windows "ding" that when I heard the PC speaker I figured Debian wasn't able to install the drivers.
Flash and a Lesson on Backports
I've grown tired of looking at the default GNOME theme, which to me is really ugly. As I was researching themes I got tired of looking at broken flash content too, so I installed the flash plugin package. This package is a backport, so you will need to edit the /etc/apt/sources.list text file in order to add backport packages. Less than a week in, and I've already sullied my pure "stable" installation.
Here's the process:
vim /etc/apt/sources.list
Add the lines:
deb http://www.backports.org/debian main contrib non-free
deb-src http://www.backports.org/debian main contrib non-free
Now add "contrib non-free" to the other lines as well.
ie: "deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian lenny main contrib non-free"
Then you have to update the package list, install the keyring package to authenticate downloaded backport packages, and install the plugin package. Here are the commands:
apt-get update
apt-get install debian-backports-keyring
apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree
Here's the process:
vim /etc/apt/sources.list
Add the lines:
deb http://www.backports.org/debian main contrib non-free
deb-src http://www.backports.org/debian main contrib non-free
Now add "contrib non-free" to the other lines as well.
ie: "deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian lenny main contrib non-free"
Then you have to update the package list, install the keyring package to authenticate downloaded backport packages, and install the plugin package. Here are the commands:
apt-get update
apt-get install debian-backports-keyring
apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree
NTFS on Linux
Apparently many distributions include an NTFS driver. Debian doesn't. The package you want to install is: ntfs-3g
There are some other tools for NTFS filesystems as well. Rather than re-invent the wheel on this one, check out:
http://www.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php
for information on the Linux-NTFS project. The kernel driver is very limited at the time of this post, so I suggest the userspace driver (ntfsprogs). It is apparently slower than the kernel driver, but includes basic features that the kernel driver doesn't - as well as some really neat utilities.
There are some other tools for NTFS filesystems as well. Rather than re-invent the wheel on this one, check out:
http://www.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php
for information on the Linux-NTFS project. The kernel driver is very limited at the time of this post, so I suggest the userspace driver (ntfsprogs). It is apparently slower than the kernel driver, but includes basic features that the kernel driver doesn't - as well as some really neat utilities.
NVIDIA on Debian Lenny
When I first installed Debian, the screen was stretched horizontally due to a bad resolution setting. I fixed this by installing NVIDIA's drivers from their website.
Go to www.nvidia.com/page/drivers.html
Choose your card, and the page should recognize the OS you're running. In my case, "Linux 64-bit"
After you download the driver, you have to restart the computer and choose "single-user" mode at the GRUB boot loader. This will bring you to the shell, without loading x-windows.
To run the installer, go to the directory you downloaded it to and type:
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-185.18.31-pkg2.run
This installer will look for precompiled drivers on your computer and on NVIDIA's ftp. Most likely it won't find them. Then it will attempt to compile the drivers on your computer. You will need a few additional packages installed for this.
Here are the commands to install the necessary pacakges:
apt-get install binutils
apt-get install gcc
apt-get install make
apt-get install linux-source-2.6.26
apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.26-2-amd64
For the last two make sure you are choosing the correct versions. You need to get the same version as the kernel you are currently running. To see the version of your kernel type:
uname -a
Finally, you can run the installer:
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-185.18.31-pkg2.run
Oops, not done yet. You will probably get a message saying that gcc is not the correct version. (I did.) You need to have the same version that was used to compile your kernel. In my case it told me that my kernel was compiled with gcc version 4.1 (and I had just installed version 4.3 of gcc.) Not to worry; Install the older version then redirect the environment variable "cc" to this older version with the following commands:
apt-get install gcc-4.1
export cc=gcc-4.1
Finally you should be all set to run the installer without any issues. It should compile the drivers and set up X-windows correctly. You know it worked when you reboot and see the NVIDIA logo just before the login screen.
Go to www.nvidia.com/page/drivers.html
Choose your card, and the page should recognize the OS you're running. In my case, "Linux 64-bit"
After you download the driver, you have to restart the computer and choose "single-user" mode at the GRUB boot loader. This will bring you to the shell, without loading x-windows.
To run the installer, go to the directory you downloaded it to and type:
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-185.18.31-pkg2.run
This installer will look for precompiled drivers on your computer and on NVIDIA's ftp. Most likely it won't find them. Then it will attempt to compile the drivers on your computer. You will need a few additional packages installed for this.
Here are the commands to install the necessary pacakges:
apt-get install binutils
apt-get install gcc
apt-get install make
apt-get install linux-source-2.6.26
apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.26-2-amd64
For the last two make sure you are choosing the correct versions. You need to get the same version as the kernel you are currently running. To see the version of your kernel type:
uname -a
Finally, you can run the installer:
sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-185.18.31-pkg2.run
Oops, not done yet. You will probably get a message saying that gcc is not the correct version. (I did.) You need to have the same version that was used to compile your kernel. In my case it told me that my kernel was compiled with gcc version 4.1 (and I had just installed version 4.3 of gcc.) Not to worry; Install the older version then redirect the environment variable "cc" to this older version with the following commands:
apt-get install gcc-4.1
export cc=gcc-4.1
Finally you should be all set to run the installer without any issues. It should compile the drivers and set up X-windows correctly. You know it worked when you reboot and see the NVIDIA logo just before the login screen.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
initial problems
Lenny installed pretty quickly, much quicker than WinXP.
The first thing I noticed when I booted up is that the screen is all stretched horizontally. A quick check of the interwebs shows that this is a common issue. (hey, the network is working!) It was then that I decided to start taking notes to keep track of any drivers or packages I install. I started editing with vim and realized that my sound card was also not working (beeps from pc speaker).
The next thing I tried to do was check out my Windows partition - but I couldn't mount it because it's NTFS.
So up and running 5 minutes and I already have 3 problems. Stay tuned.
The first thing I noticed when I booted up is that the screen is all stretched horizontally. A quick check of the interwebs shows that this is a common issue. (hey, the network is working!) It was then that I decided to start taking notes to keep track of any drivers or packages I install. I started editing with vim and realized that my sound card was also not working (beeps from pc speaker).
The next thing I tried to do was check out my Windows partition - but I couldn't mount it because it's NTFS.
So up and running 5 minutes and I already have 3 problems. Stay tuned.
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